MISREPRESENTATION ANSWERED.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1813, 28 July 1913, Page 6

MISREPRESENTATION ANSWERED.

Certain members of the Opposition were subjected to a severe castigation at the hands of the Prime Minister and Minister for Marino in the House of Representatives on Friday night* Mr. G. W. Russell and his friends were looking for troublo and as is often the case in such circumstances they got a little more of it than they were prepared for. Thoso politicians who are fondest of imputing bad faith and unworthy motives to others are generally tho mast sensitive when their own political actions arc subjected to scrutiny. For months past the anti-Reformers have been telling the country that the present Government did not honestly intend to give effect to its programme of progressive legislation, and that if ever Mr. Massey became Primo Minister the Old Age Pensions Act and other humanitarian legislation on tho Stat-i ute Book would be repealed or rendered inoperative; but, as Mr. W. H. D. Bell pointed out during Friday night's debate on the Government's proposals for oxtending tho scope of the pensions scheme and making it more liberal, the Reform party aro continually giving the most effective answer to all this wild and reckless talk by placing their progressive measures one after another on tho Statute Book. Ever since- the Government has been in offioe it has confounded its critics with Bill after Bill, and these samo critics havo been compelled over and over again to follow Mr. Massey into tho lobby and vote for his measures. They have now been forced to admit what the country has cordially recognised all along, that the Government is in earnest and really means business. Not only has it maintained the existing humanitarian legislation, but it has materially improved and extended it and has other reforms of this character under consideration. The anti-Reform-ers, having become further discredited in tho country by the falsification of their unworthy predictions aro now at their wits' end.- They have become angry and reckless, and in this state of mind they got themselves into a vory unpleasant predicament on Friday night. One of their favourite methods of criticism is to declare that the Government has no policy, and when some important policy measure comes along to prove, tho falsity of their assertion they vary the tune and claim that it is borrowed from them. They tried to bing tho latter tune on Friday, but the effort ended disastrously. Mr. Russell interjocted that tho Bill contained tho policy of his party, and Mr. AVitty stated that the members of tho present Government had bitterly opposed the old age pension in its early stages. Tnon Me. Massey took the gloves off. Ho said he had listened timo after time to members'on the othor side accusing him of opposing the Old Age Pensions Bill. As a matter of. fact ho voted for its ond reading. Have Opposition members anything to say to that? ho askod; and his question was allowed to go unanswered. He thon carried the matter a stop further to tho manifest discomfiture of the anti-Reformers. He stated that he "had not thought it worth while to correct them until that night. The men. who voted against the second reading of the first Old Age Pension Bill wore Messrs. Latvry, M'Gowan, O'Reoan, Pakata, T. Mackenzie, and R. M'Kenzie. The latter member put it on record that he had called for a division only in order to see how members who had spoken against the Bill would vote. One of these men was afterwards Prime Minister of the 'Liberal' party and another was a Minister of that party for many years." In view of the persistent misrepresentations of himself and his supporters by the Opposition press and politicians, these facts are worth noting. , Mr. Massey also reminded the Houso that tho Government's proposal for military pensions was the first practical recognition of the services of tho veterans of the war. And that was after tho "Liberal" party had beon in offioo for 21 years. In the lipht of these undeniable facts the pitiful cry of tho anti-Reformers that the Government would deprive the poor people of their old age' pensions is scon to be nothing more than the baseless invention of disappointed opponents whose principal weapon is misrepresentation.