The Political Campaign.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3553, 29 July 1905, Page 2

The Political Campaign.

CONTEST FOR Trig MANAWATU SEAT. MR E'RANKLAND’S ADDRESS. Very inauspicious indeed w-ef® the atmospheric conditions on Tuesuay evening, when Mr F. W. Frankland delivered his first address to the electors ot Man aw at it. In spite, however, of rain and wind a iaifh' large audience gathered in the Masonic Hall, and listened with quiet attention to the speaker’s remarks,-which were occasionally punctuated with applause. INTRODUCTORY. Mr R. Moore occupied the chair, and formally introduced the candidate.

Mr Frankland. who on rising was greeted with loud applause, prefaced his address by remarking that this was only the first of what he hoped would be a series of addresses to be delivered during the electoral campaign now begun ; therefore he would not detain Ins' audience to a late hour on this occasion. But before submitting to them in detail, as he hoped to do on a future occasion, the views he held on the specific • questions that would shortly engage the attention of Parliament,'it seemed, he continued, best that he should give, as promised by advertisement, a preliminary sketch or outline of the political situation as a whole as it appeared to him, and what were the general aims with which he sought to enter Colonial public life. It was true, he said, the Feilding and Rangitikei papers had got hold of some of the “ planks ” in his “ platform,” and he might touch on them that evening ; but only briefly, and, above all, he did not intend to indulge im personalities 'ot any description. This, therefore, was an introductory address, and in giving it he could not tell them what a comfort it was to him that he was meeting fellow townsmen, many o* , lhe ™ friends of very old standin,?-v-.before he had to travel to a part of ta* C 0 stitrency where he was a compaiH" five stranger. That other part had been humorously dubbed the “enemy’s country.” “Bui, ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr Frankland, “ there is no enemy’s country in Manawatu —or in Rangitikei, either. We are all going to work together as friends tor the advancement of our district and of the grand voung country ot which we are fellowcitizens.” He also derived a particular gratification from the fact that he could say “ ‘ Ladies ’ and Gentlemen ” in addressing them, and it cheered him to find so many ladies present. From boyhood upwards he hid worked for woman suffrage. Long before it was carried, _ either here or anywhere else except in Wyoming, he had button-holed members ot Parliament, he had made himself “ all things to all men ” in endeavouring to appeal to the idiosyncrades of each, and had been much inclined to sing a “ Nunc Dimittis ” when the great measure was passed in New Zealand — the first to adopt _it among the dominions of the British Crown. They might therefore imagine Ir.s pleasure, on mounting tor the first time a political platform, at being able to hail all their sisters as full fallowcitizens,—arbiters, equally with their brothers, ot the parliamentary aspirant’s fate.

HIS CANDIDATURE. Mr Frankland continued;: —“ I make no apology for appearing before yon as a candidate to-night, because although not long an actual resident in your midst—my special interests in and in connection with this district, and my residence in the co'-ui • of New Zealand (interrupted, it is true, for a decade) stretch back across thirty years almost to the early clays of settlement. ■ I can remember the time when no train yet went from here; but when a horse-drawn trai l carried ns in six hours along woo len nils through, boggy country—dense with hush from Oroua Bridge oawards— to that natural clearing dott ;d with shanties of a f w energetic and flushing settlers, which men called Pal rmrston. I can remember the time when No. 2 Line, instead of leading through comparatively open country, was the most lovely native bush rood 1 hove ever walked along, and when at the end of it—on mounting the hill at what used to be McPherso i’s —the great Moutoa swamp cam; - n you as a surprise. For fifteen ve-ws and more, while resident in We- ington as a member of the Civil Service of the colony, I have watched the progress of settlement in this district, which was the centre of my friendships, and, later—of my family connections. And, ladies and gentlemen, I have sh nvn by my actions that there Is no p'ace in the world to which I would rather devote any qualifications 1 may possess than the Manawatu dis'rict in general, and the town of Fo>don in particular. I have no sooner been in a position to determine the place ot my residence by choice instead of by necessity, than I have settled down amongst you, made by investments in your midst, and still further tied down the future otrny funily to your yelfare and progress. Your future ir,. my future and that of rnv children. But why, on returning to the colony where the bulk of my life has been spent, am I specially impelled to seek to represent you, not only, as I do already, in local matters, but a 1 so in the general counsels of the nation ? This is what I want now to explain, l am not in need of the parliamentary salary, having already enough to live on in my simple way. I have no large esta‘e that would give me a personal ‘ axe to grind,’ but I crave to enter politics because my always ardent feelings on political issues have received, from the peculiar circumstances of mv experience, a particularly keen edg°, —and in a way which will soon be clear to you.

NEW ZEALAND COMPARED WITH OT HER COUNTRIES. “ To anyone returning a r (er a long residence abroad, there mu it, among the many impressions which crowd npon his mind, h° one imp’-ns-sion, which, if he is a stud mt of social conditions, will be of overwhelming strength. It is that

Netf Zealand is politically unique amon ir the nations of the world, that the b'essings Cuj°3' e d here are unprecedented, A ioilg series ot youth* fa! years spent in this Paradise ot the South may have left one comparatively careless as to these blessings. One may have taken them for granted, like the fresh air and the sunshine, as fads of nature that come to U» Without our seeking them. He may have thought that, as it is here, so it would be anywhere else—-at least in the so-called 1 civilized ’ world—that peace and plenty, liberty and opportunities for all, would prevail as surely as God’s sunshine ana His rain. He had, indeed, heard from others, or he had read in books, that all, countries were not as a fact equally so blessed ; but the tidings had made little impression upon him, and he had assumed—in a careless way—that as if: is here, so it is everywhere {or at least generally)? and always. English speaking peoples, whatever be true of foreigners, would always manage to make a fair success or popular government ; would always retain the blessings of political liberty, dr security, and of a sufficiency of food for all. Such a New Zealander goes abroad. He has been told perhaps, and rightly, of the superior advancement ot some of the northern countries in the arts and conveniences of life. He had perhaps chafed under the hardships which fall to the lot of the pioneer set?let in a young country where everything is necessarily new, and where the conveniences ot an old. established civilization are only being gradually assimilated as settlement progresses. He visits these Ntorthern countries. He resides in them for a number of years. If he is fortunate enough to have secured a good niche in the economic structure of the country ot his adoption he lives perhaps very happily and enjoys to the lull the smoothness and the 'amenity of the older civilisation. Life, it is true, is more strenuous for him, unless he have independent means, than it was in New Zealand, Competition is fierce and relentless. Every year, ev«srv month, every day, in his own walk of Ufa competitors drop out of the game, —crusnS by the Juggernaut Car which comes od them fro . m behind. But, for the sarviyCr s ,ic this struggle for existence, life is atm'ugot much amenity and pleasure, especially in America, though there is much toil combined with it. Many there are who, successful themselves aud keeping their own heads above water, give little thought to the sufferings of their weaker brethern whom the fierce natural selection of the great Northern cou vri. s is crowding out of existence. But, to anyone who can take a broader view, the undertone of life in these Northern countries — : be . if America or be it England—is a . very - sad one. Endless misery for generation after generation of the wageworkers, or at least for the “submerged tenth ” of the people, and this is a very moderate estimate, have coaie to be accepted as a normal lot. 1 The poor ye have with you always * was said nineteen hundred years ago, and it is as appalling a truth now, save in this favoured land in which we stand, as it ever has been during the centuries that have intervened, ‘ Can nothing be done ? ’ is the agonised cry ot every lover of his kind. In an old and crowded country like England, a great natural law (the Malthusian) is held by many thinkers to be responsible for the horrors under which millions suffer want, and slave incessantly throughout life, —suffer poverty and endure hard work such as are unknown in New Zealand;, while hundreds enjoy wealth beyond the dreams of avarice ; wealth as compared with which that of our richest citizens in New Zealand is like pauperism, but if this horror is duo only to a natural law; if it is only because Great Britain, unlike New Zealand, is an old and crowded country, why, ladies and gentlemen, is the horror reproduced, in some respects in intensified form, in America ? There you have a country, young like New Zealand, with the’ most enormous extent of virgin territory ever offered to civilized mankind, and yet after a couple of centuries or so of progress, with the surface of the soil scarcely scratched as compared to the old countries of Europe, —you have ten millions of people, as Robert Hunter has proved in his recent jvork entitled ‘ Poverty,’ constantly on the verge nf actual destitution, and yet John D. Rockefeller has made a fortune so huge that if it were con* verted into silver it would weigh as much as. two firs?-class battleships, while it it were taken in one dollar bank notes it would make a girdle twice round the world, with 15,00' miles to spare. Ladies and gentlemen, in America —that land in most respects so far ahead of all other countries, and where the happiest days imaginable are spent by the fortunate—there must be something politically wrong where these things can he. The misery of the American poor is not due to mere physical law. It is due to there being something wrong in the relations between man and man; something which legislation, and legislation alone, can remedy. “ The New Zealander I have described, npon whose mind has been produced this overwhelming impressions of the superiority of political blessings we enjoy here, is essentially the candidate who stands before yon to-day. But there has also, ladies and gentlemen, been impressed on him a sense of the peril of losing these advantages, and were I convinced that the political blessings we enjoy here, and which during the last fourteen years have made New Zealand the admiration of the civilized world—were I convinced that these advantages were in their very pature enternaland perpetual,.! might not trouble to solicit your suffrages now and might continue to devote myself to the philosophical studies which have been my principal solace since retiring from active life, But, persuaded, as I am, tha? ‘ eternal vigilance is the price ’ not onlv of liberty, as the old saw has it, but; ot political blessings, I do not see hnw .1 j can better spend the evening of my ' life than in helping my small best to

safeguard and increase those political blessings, if I should be fortunate enough to be chosen lor the honour of serving you in the Assembly to which Atyou arc about to elect a representa- ' five. POLITICAL PARTY LEANINGS. “ Now, if these are the feelings and aspirations with which I seek to enter politics,, if what is dearest to my head is the perpetuation and even the improvement of the happy lot here of the settlors and the wage-workers—then can yon doubt on which side of the House I should feel myself constrained to vote? Having been inpressad, through all my residence abroad, with an overwhelming feeling of the misery and down-trodden condition of manual labour (a condition which those of you who have not seen it cannot realize), looking back, all the time, on New Zealand as the land of hope, the ‘ city set on a hill,’ the ‘ candle pul on a candle-stick ’ to light the other nations along the path which leads to comtort for all instead of luxury for the few—can you doubt that I should substantially give my support to the great man who for nearly fourteen years has guided our country along this path so that it is fitted to be an sample for all the other nations of the earth? “Those of you who have neverleft . New Zealand can form but a poor idea of the potential miseries that Mr Sed/don has saved ns trorn. Nothing \eollklbe sadder than that this young land should, on its small scale, take for an ideal the kind of progress which, on the great scale, has bean exemplified by that other nation, America—a progress unexampled indeed ul the material arts and in the luxuries of life for those who can afford to buy them, but heading frorii good to bad and from bad to worse so far as the welfare of its less fortunate citizens is concerned. Read “ Amanda of the Mill,” and ponder how little children of the once democratic republic, instead of having a tree and happy existence like our children at the Stats School here, are ' made to slave their little lives to death in factories to satisfy the greed (for cheap labour and consequent increased profits) of employers whose enormous wealth can buy all legislation that is needed to perpetuate iniquity. Do yon wonder that I was a member of the Direct Legislation League while resident in America, and that I put the Swiss institutions of the Initiative and Referendum in the forefront of my political platform ? , “ It is our laud and labour Jegislation, our general political trend, as iocnssed in McKenzie, in Stout, in Seddon, and ia Tregear, that has saved us trora the fate of America—a fate which may yet overtake us if we allow the shibboleths of ualiinited free contract and ‘every man for himself' to regain dominion over our minds. The names of Ballance, of McKenzie, of Reeves, and of Seddon, will, in my opinion, go down to history as among the greatest social pioneers and social ■ saviours the world has ever seen. , Such views may or may not be popular in this constituency. They may or may not be regarded as fanciful or extravagant. But they arc not considered extravagant or fanciful—they are common-places— among the most thoughtful sociologists ami the most unselfish citizens ia America and ia England, Many an American, groaning under the plutocratic tendencies of industry in this age and especially in his country, wishes it were possible to instal under the Stars and Stripes an administration comparable to that of the Liberal party which has held office in New Zealand these fourteen years. I have in my possession, given me by Mr Rufus Weeks, a vicepresident of the New York Life Insurance Company, a dear American friend, a large book called “The Story of New Zealand,” by the great American Professor Frank Parsons, which I will gladly lend to anyone in ‘ this electorate in order to show him dr her how oitr political blessings appeal to the foreigner who is less fortunate. “ But, ladies and gentlemen, in any case, even if I cannot communicate to you the ardour of my laitk, even it 1 lose my election by it, even if I were to go to the poll without a single vote recorded ia my favour, I would rather it were so than that I should lose this opportunity of publicly proclaiming the faith that is in me—the democratic faith that has been in me from boy hood—the opportunity of irrevocably nailing my colours to the mast. “ Only on Saturday morning came a telegram about President Roosevelt, , who among other things told an interviewer that he ‘ took a keen interest in Australia and New Zealand, particularly New Zealand.’ Is it any wander that he takes an interest ■especially in New Zealand?’ For well ha knows, as anyone else might know that what New Zealand is other nations ought to be. To put it more accurately, while in most things we have to sit at the feet of northern nations and learn from them, in politics

and legislation it is they that have got to learn from us. Or, rather, while, even politically, we have to learn from them, it is (with a few exceptions, especiaily in the case of Switzerland, which is politically ideal) to learn trom them what we ought to avoid.

LIBERAL PARTY AND PROGRESS. '« And yet* friends, while the kind of ■strenuous Ufa’ exsmplified in America is to be avoided as inflicting a ‘hell upon earth’—to say nothing of Its injustice—on (he vast masses at the base of the social pyramid, we must not, on the other hand, in our desire to redress inequalities of wealth, destroy the stimulus to exertion or the reward of exceptional ability. And this is where many would-be reformers hay* gone wrong in their political and social theories. They have forgotten that while -much cau he done towards equalisingtht human lot without in the least reducing perhaps sometimes even increasing—the total industry of the community, yet, if we go too far alosg this road, the energies of its members may be diminished even to paralysis, and the equality resulting will then be the equality of destitution and not the equality of comfort. Now who, ot all political administrators on this earth, has come so near to the happy medium in this respect as hewho, for more than a decade, has

made New Zealand the Utopia of all socialistic reformers, and yet at the same time has so safeguarded its business energy and progressive enterprise that reactionaries the world over are gnashing their teeth in impotent rage at the stubborn refusal of our community to break down as they had hoped and expected it would? A hundred limes, during my residence abroad, I have seen in the capitalist press venomous articles by antilabourite writers, of which one in the London ‘Financial News’ may serve as a example. ‘ break DOWN OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMMUNE. —MR SEDDON’S POLICY A failure,’ stared me in the face in flaming headlines: while, perhaps, ip another column of the very same there would be an article lauding him tor the South African contingcnt-a welcome boon to capitalist employers on the Rand 1 Yet we go on, obstinately refusing to fail, and our prosperity advances, as Sir Julius Vogel would have said, by leaps and bounds. It we have a temporary setback, as here in flax, to what administrator could your member go with more hope that all a government can do would be doae to recover our market ? Net Emperor William himself is a better consul-general of his nation than Mr Seddon has been of our little country. And, speaking to farmers, as I have to do in this electorate, can I not appeal to gratitude alone for endorsement of the substantial support I propose to accord the Administration ? Let me tell you this, I have been here many years ago,—before the Advances to Settlers Act was passed. 1 know what the regime of dear money meant. len per cent was very pleasant for us mortgagees, and it used to constitute a nice little addition to my salary as a civil servant. But how many thousands of struggling pioneers has not Mr Sed* don put on their legs by the regime of 5 and 4.} per cent. Do not ungratefully abandon the tried friend in favour of leaders who might lead —I tremble to think where 1

MR frankland’s independence. “ Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, no man is good enough to be a god. If you should do me the honour of electing me, you will have in Parliament a member who cannot see his way to give a blind support to any Premier, however, able. If you want a member whojwill say ‘ my party,, right or wrong, you must vote for someone else. On some few points, even f -and I dout say it with bated breath, either —my long residence in America may have fitted me to see more clearly than those who are far my superiors in general political ability. ‘ Onlookers see most of the game ’ is an old adage ; and while my opportunity of comparing what we enjoy in New Zealand with what exists elsewhere may make me more keenly alive to the blessings that have been secured here, I am perhaps more on the alert as to possible and insidious ways in which we may lose these blessings than even some of the very men who have won them for us. In a tew days I shall distribute among, you a circular I have had printed abridging what seems to me an epochmaking aiticle in the ‘ Evening Post ’ on the imminence of the Trust peril. And if there is any important concrete question on which Lean see the possibity of voting, through what they might perhaps regard as excess or democratic zeal, against the Admistration, and with the small party of Independent Liberals that already exists in the House, it is precisely here. It is in setting up constitutional machinery that I know, from my study at first hand of the Swiss system, to lie effeclive in checking evils which I equally know, from my residence in America, to be both imminent and alarming. “ Thus my great object in trying to enter New Zealand politics is to bear my part in the service of democratic ideals. Of these ideals it is sober truth to say that the New Zealand Liberal Party has been for long the most grandly successful champion in the world, and I hope and believe it will remain their conspicuous exponent for many a year to come. But, ladies and gentlemen, an out-and-out tied down Party man, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, is what I do not see my way to become. It may be that ray inexperience misleads me, and that were I familiar with parliamentary practice, I should appreciate < more highly the value of party discipline. I well remember, many years ago, my dear old chief, Sir Harry Atkinson, endeavouring to impress this view of the matter on me, —but in vain. * I nayer saw such a House, he once said, soon after a general election. The new members can’t seem to see that they have got to choose between God and Baal.’ Now, if the party chiefs were truly God and Baal respectively, I should agree with Sir Harry as to the imperativeness of enlisting for life under one or the ether banner, and the position of an independent Liberal would in that case be an impertinence, if not a blasphemy. But, ladies and gentlemen, in the best and greatest ot actual party leaders there are faults ; and in connection with those opposition members to whom we are on the whole most opposed, there are minor points as to which one is compelled to agree with them against one’s own political friends. For this reason it is that, I call myself an Independant Liberal, though it is needless to say that the spirit of my attitude towards the Administration is far differaat from that of the able men who constitute, under the term Independent Liberal, though it is needless to say that whatever may be the formal relations, the spirit of my attitude towards the Administration is far different from that of the able men who constitute, under the term Independent Liberal, the existing Cave of Adullam in the House of Representatives. (To be Continued.)