FORTHCOMING GENERAL ELECTION.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 246, 10 November 1914, Page 1

FORTHCOMING GENERAL ELECTION.

Franklin's Liberal Candidate Speech by Mr Glass. There was a fairly large attendance in the Premier Hall, at Pukekohe, on Thursday evening, when Mr A. G. C. Glass, of Mercer, who is standing as the Liberal candidate for Franklin in opposition to the silting member, the Bon. W. F. Massey, Prime Minister. Mr C. K. Lawrie, Mayor of Pukekohe, occupied the chair, and in formally introducing the speaker remarked that he considered him a very plucky man in coming foward to challenge the Prime Minister in his home electorate. SQUARE DEAL WANTED. Mr Glass stated at the outset of his address that he had only come forward as a candidate because he considered that the Franklin electorate bad not bad a square deal from tbe Reform party. No party, he considersd, should be in power if it did not give a square deal to all classes of the community, and he hoped to convince bis audience that everyone had not had a square deal from the Reform party. THE LICENSING QUESTION. In the first place he would mention the licensing question before getting down to politics. On that question he had been asked to support the bare majority, and he should like to do that, but he considered it was no use promising to support the bare majority here and then if he should get to Parliament voting the for 55 per cent, majority because he could not get the bare majority and then finding the question as far away from settlement as it was before. For the last 25 years there had been no straight-out issue before the electors, and he thought the time was ripe for a referendum to be taken on whether this question should be decided on the bare majority, 65 per cent., or two-thirds majority. When that point was decided by referendum the pell should be fixed to take place at intervals of nine years, and should bu held on a date apart from the date of the electoral poll, and on a straight-out issue of continuance or national no-Hcense. He did not believe at all in local oiohibition. BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS. Another big question was the Bible-in-Schools. He believed in religious instruction, but he also believed that the Bible should not be taught in the btate schools within school hours or by State school teachers. There was already an overcrowded syllabus that cast a heavy burden on the teachers, and this should not be afded to it. But he would support a proposal like the Nelson system, to have the children given non-sectarian lessons before and after school hours by special teachers.

THE GOVERNMENT CRITICISED. Mr Glass at this' stage entered on a criticism of things that had been done, and proposed, by the present Government. The Railway Act Amendment Bill, he said, had been put through Parliament with a clause prescribing that in the case of all future railways the coat of construction must be borne by the owners of properties through which the line passed. That clause had been put through, he stated, after the Waiuku railway had been completed through a certain big block of land, and he wanted to know if the clause would be retrospective. He wanted the audience to ask their member when he came before them what inteiest he and his party owned in that block of land.

The speaker declared that the Reform party'b native land policy was worse than that of its predecessors. The Party reminded him of a plum tree that had the blight and had been cut and sprayed and pruned, but waa found to be still infected and had to be pulled out root and branch. The old Tory Party had been cut and pruned into the Reform Party, but it still showed the Tory blight and would have to come out. Before last election the Prime Minister and bis party had declared that if they were returned speculation in native lands would be off, the lands would be purchased, cut up, roaded and sold to settlers and the purchase money invested for the natives with the Public Trustee. The Reform Party had not kept their promises to cut up the native lands and there was still speculation. They Bhould ask Mr Massey to tell them what members of his partv had bought native lands since he had been in power. Mr Massey had promised to wipe out all land tenures except the 0.R.P., and he had not kept that promise. He had promised not to touch the national endowments, yet an endowment at Avondale was sold by the Government at the original value. He had promised he would put small settlers on the land; 'but he had proposed a clause in the Land Act giving Land Boards power to dispense with personal residence on sectious, which opened the way to town speculators putting a man on the land for speculation purposes. That, the speaker considered, was an absolute breach of faith with the labourers and small settlers. Then again where had the Local Reform Bill gone? It was to see that the State maintained all the arterial roads and the local bodies were to have an assured finance with no more toadying to the Government for money, but it had not come to pass. THE HUNTLY DISASTER. Reference waa made by the candidate to the Huritly explosion, the Government's borrowing policy, and the "James Circular," all in the teims of criticism.

< CLAIMS OF LABOUR. Continuing his criticism?, Mr Glass asserted that political patronage had been consistently shown in the Government s hostility to Labour. The Labour memtur on the Auckland Harbour Board had been displaced by a Government nominee of different colour. The Minister for Labour, whose duty, the i speaker considered was to particularly conserve (he privileges and to specially represent the interests <>f the labouring people only, had given way to the Union S.S. Company monopoly during the 1913 strike. ASSISTING SMALL FARMERS. A new departure in State policy was proposed by the candidate in concluding his sddrfss. It was, he explained, a scheme for assisting small farmers during times of financial stringency by the issue of State debentures on the security of the stock of the borrow irg farmer. He proposed that authority should be given the State Advances Department to issue such debentures up to a limit of £2,000,000, the debentures to be interest-bearing up to five per cent., re-callable in periods of two years to ten years, and made legal tender throughout the Dominion. His idea was that a farmer requiring money on account of the stress of the season, and having, say, £2OO worth of stock, should be able to borrow £IOO lrom the State in the form of these debentures at 6J per cent., the debentures to be issued as applied for on the security being approved aod to return 6 per cent, to the local investor who, purchased them, the remaining 1J per cent, payable by the borrower to go to a depreciation fund. This, Mr Glass explained, would help small farmers through the various pinches they experienced and save them from having to sacrifice their fat stock on a cheap market which forced them frequently into the hands of the dealers and tbe commission agents. The scheme, he was sure, was workable, and could be done on the money of investors in the Dominion. I'HE CANDIDATE QUESTIONED. One of the audience pointed out to the speaker that he had heard a great deal cf criticism from the candidate* but little in the way of policy. To this Mr Glass replied that his platform waß the platform of the I iberal Party, with the addition of the licensing referendum, and the scheme for the issue of State debentures, as required, up to £2,000,000, for the assistance of small farmers.

Iti reply to other questions Mr Glass said that while advocating a licensing referendum on the majority question he pereonally favoured the bare majority; and that on the Bible-in-Schools question he did not favour a referendum, and did not think it right to force Bible-teaching into the State schools in school hours. "Are you in favour of a Fair Rent Bill?" asked an elector. "I have not thought of it," wag the reply. "But I don't believe in any man beiDg rack-rented in any shape or form. If the Liberal Party b3ck up a Fair Rent Bill I will back it up."

Asked to state his views on the local navy question, the candidate said he didn't believe in tin-pot navie/at all, but what the country wanted was submarines and heavy guns for the protection of the harbours, but not costly battleships and cruisers.

Iu the eveDt uf the Liberal Party going Lack to power what action would you take in regard to the Upper House ?" asked a member of the audience.—'l would abolish the whole lot."

"What is that?" queried Mr Glass when asked if bo favoured the right of recall. The interrogator said that it was the right of electors to demand that their member should resign, and submit himself to another poll if he acted like Mr Payne, c. Grey Lynn. "Certainly I am," stated the enlightened politician. Asked if ho favoured proportional representation, Mr Glass replied "Yes." Every i!a;j if the community should be represented. In the present Government what class is reprosentod 'i Where is Tliey should be represented like tlio others."

"I'm glad you aslcel me that, it's just what I wanted," replied Mr Glass smilingly, when an elector asked him if it was a fair proposition to request the Government to take over the lowering of the Wsikato I(iver as a national proposition. "In the first placo" ho said, the Government engineer was not opposed to the undertaking. He had reported that the river can be lowered, at the bottom end, and at the same time the Minister of Lands eaid in Hansard that he could lower it and drain the "Whangamarino Swamp but didn't want to do so becauso somo of the settlers were holding a pistol to his head. That is untrue, because every man of the settlers is draining his land at his own expense. One man has five miles of drains through Crown land and the Government won't help him to clean them out." Mr Glass w«t on to state that the Minister of Lands had promised t) put a Bill through the House to assist in the undertaking and had then gone against it until certain parties had concluded land negotiations. Then the Kiver Board had not been given one penny's assistance in its work, while tiie Aka Aka settlers were granted £4OO for the mouth of the river. That was one reason above all the others that he was going to try to get the Government out. THANKS AND CONFIDENCE. At the conclusion of the meeting a vote of thanks to the speaker and of confidence in the Liberal Party was carried almost unanimously.