AN OPEN LETTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1093, 13 January 1912, Page 3

AN OPEN LETTER.

To Mr Percy T. Robinson

Dear Sir, —My attention has been called to an open letter addressed to me in the Manawatu Herald of December 23rd, 1911, and signed by you. In that letter you begin b} 7 quoting some words irom a speech of mine, and I thank you for it because those words clearly express my position. I said that “the ballot in your hands can be made a whip of knotted cords wherewith to scourge the money-changers from the temple of God’s justice.” Ay — can be made. Whether the electors of Otaki have helped to drive the money-changers from the temple of justice by sending a supporter of Mr Massey to Parliament remains to be seen. I do not think the temple will be cleansed in that way; the Tory and the money-changer have been partners in business too long. That is only one man’s opinion, of course ; but it is the opinion of one who has known New Zealand and its rulers for half a century. The practical danger at the present hour is that the huge majority of the electors of this Dominion have no knowledge of any government except by Liberals. Men who are now forty years old bad no vote and no interest in politics when the last Tory Government was in power. Those electors know nothing of the outrageous tyranny, the wholesale land stealing, the corrupt administration, the financial conspiracies, which marked (like skeletons on a caravan route) the long trail of the Tory party’s rule. You have often heard of the nigger who was so black that charcoal would make a white mark on him. The darkest deed that a slander-cackl-ing Opposition ever imputed against the Seddou or Ward Government would stand out white as chalk against the blackness of the men John Ballance drove from the Treasury benches. I, myself, have not been brought up to manhood (like most of your electors) in the sunshine and prosperous years of the Liberal and Labour administration. I have one long undying hatred for the Tories ; any man who allies himself with them and enlists under their degrading banner I will fight, to ' the last cartridge and the last ditch. You may say, “Why rake up ancient history ? These men of the “ Reform ” Party are different.” Are they ? I see among them the men who fought with tooth and claw against every reform and every progressive statute for the benefit ot the masses ; have fought, unchanging, against the Arbitration Act, the Compensation for Accident Act, the Shearers’ Accommodation Act, Old Age Pensions, Workers’ Homes, Advances to Workers, etc., etc. Mr Herdmau, one of their most prominent men, let out —even while speaking for this election-made claptrap “ Reform ” —that he would abolish the Arbitration Act, give workers under the Shop Act eleven hours instead of ten a day, and he referred contemptuously to the workers as “Tom, Dick and Harry.” He was sent up to Masterton at election time to jump with both feet on a sick man, that sturdy old democrat, Mr Hogg. The wealthy Tory ruuholders sent their luxurious motor cars hundreds of miles in order to crush down the workers’ votes in Wellington. That is .the kind of thing they do before they get into power ; it they get into office (they are not there yet, not by a long way) then God help you ! What am I accused of doing ? That my influence was used against your candidate —that the efforts of “Bung” were bolstered up by me—that I urged the electors to vote for the open and avowed agents of Wardism —that I sent a telegram to tell the electors that Robertson had no connection with the Labour Party. Except the last one, each of these accusations is a He; a lie so false that it would only excite laughter among those who know me personally. I never used any interest for or against any candidate in Otaki district. I never wrote or spoke to a man or woman about Otaki election, for indeed I hardly know a living soul in that part of the country. Next, as to “Bung” —I am not only a prohibitionist, but at election time gave a public address in favour of National Prohibition ; so as to bolstering up the Liquor Trade, that lie lalls flat. Now, as to the telegram, the executive of the Labour Party had published a statement that it would support none but the pledged candidates of its patty ; the Weekly Herald published a list of those pledged candidates, and Mr Robertson’s name was not among them. Asked if the Labour Party supported Mr Robertson, I wired that the party supported only its own pledged candidates of which Mr Robertson was not one. I thus merely repealed a truth which was already public property in the capital city. Was I to say he was a pledged candidate ? I think you wrong Mr Robertson, who has shown no sign of “lacing both ways.” He did not claim to be a Labour Party’s candidate ; why should I lie and say he was ? I cannot see how I departed from truth in the least, or how my repetition of a well-known fact could be distoited into statements that I had helped “every groggery from Shannon to the southern end of the electorate to ensure our defeat”—or that I became “the open and avowed ally of priest-craft publicanistn and ‘fat.’ ” 11 the priest, the publican and the fat man have no belter friends than I am, their tenure ol occupancy will be short. Such allegations as those made in that ‘Open Letter’ only harm those who invent them. Save your

thunderbolts for your foes, and don’t perpetuate the old fault of New Zealand workers as a political party, viz., to snap more viciously at the hands of friends than at those of enemies.

Mr Robertson, if he is a Socialist and lover of the workers, is my friend whether he wishes to be or not. Mr Robertson, so long as he votes for Mr Massey or the party Mr Massey leads, is my deadly enemy. I will have no part or lot with those who robbed New Zealand of her lauds, shamelessly, ruthlessly, infamously in the past, and who will, if helped to power, as shamelessly rob us in the future of our leased Crown Lands, our poor little National Endowments and of the freehold ot the Lands for Settlement, which we have borrowed money to buy back from Mr Massey’s old friends._ To Mr Robertson the Socialist, “All hail!” To Mr Robertson the Masseyite, “War! and War! and War !” —I am, etc., Edward Tregear.