LABOUR ON THE STUMP

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3026, 13 March 1917, Page 7

LABOUR ON THE STUMP

MEETING IN THE OPEN AIR

Between 100 and 150 people listened to the Labour candidates for the City Council, who addressed an open-air meeting at tho foot of tho Queen's Wharf ljetv,'Eon noon and 1 p.m. yesterday. Mr. James M'Keußie, who acted as chairman, said it was tho intention of tho Labour ticket to hold meetings frequently in that place during tho campaign, and bespoke a good hearing for tho speakers. Tho first candidate. to mount tho chair was Mr. W. M. "Wiles, wlio spoko of the disadvantages of tlio Labour candidates compared with thoso representing tho employing classes. Referring to tho housing problem, ho referred to the ]X>wers of tho (ioveriiment in tho matter of erecting workers' dwellings, stating that tho.y had boon exercised to build houses at the rate of nine per year, which did not replace houses that were burnt down or condemned. TH® City Council had also been invested with powers to erect workoTs' dwollings, hut had don;* nothing at all, so the work of building houses had been left to the speculator and the land-jobber, whoso sole obieet was to get as many houses as possTbio erected on a given piece of ground. That was why they had so many lowroofed, small-roomed buildings, which the present council hud allowed to bo built. What thoy proposed was to secure land on the outskirts of tho city and in the suburbs, and erect decent houses for th© workers, only charging thorn a rent that would represent tlio interest on tho capital invested. That could not bo dono on land that cost more than £300 per acre, yet thoy saw people living on land in tho city that was valued at £3000 per acre. In the early days tho pioneers of Wellington had set aside a block of land for a. public market, but it had never been used for that purposo, and , the result was that Wellington Bbaod

alone among the progressiva citics as a place without it public market; Ho also advocated a lisli market iu a central sito, and tho scouring of a trawler, so ttia& they could always rely on a supply of fresh fisli, and not be tho necessity, as Councillor Bush had stated, of 'purchasing supplies for tlio markot at higher prices _ than they could he bought for retail, 'l'ho fish go secured would bo sold at a prica that would cover tho cost of socuring them, plus interest on tho cost of the l'lant. , , Mr. H. Holland said that tho lington City Council had followed in the steps' of tho Government Br refusing to allow the Town Hall to do used by the Labour Party. Ha claimed that ovory man Svitli a thought who dosired to givo, expression to that thought in clean, deccnt language should bo allowed to do so. Ho maintained that if electors looked bach only two short years and ascertained what the present counoil had promised at tho hustings it would ho found that not one of those promises had been kept. Not one singl® item on the programmo had been adhered to. That was strange, too, lor they had had it all tiieir own way, as there was not a single man on tho council ropresontiiig labour.