A FIGHTING SPEECH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 16, 9 May 1914, Page 5

A FIGHTING SPEECH.

MR W. D. S. MACDONALD AT PAKARAKA. {Pee Pbess Association.] . Gisborne, May 8. Mr W. D. S. MacDonald addressed his constituents at Pakaraka last evening, when, despite his recent accident, he spokp for two hours vigorously and trenchantly criticised the Government. He received an unanimous vote of thanks and confidence. In the course of his speech Mr MacDonald said the Government had been in power only a few months yet spoke derisively of those who had built up the country for years past. The Liberals, for this reason, would fight the coming election from the North Cape to the Bluff. He "challenged Mr Massey to prove his statement about giving 20,000 people the right to acquire the freehold. He twitted the Government with having a leaseholder in the Cabinet. If Mr Massey remained in power till the crack of doom he could not possibly put as many people on the land as the Liberals had during the past 21 years. He made extended reference to native affairs and charged the Government with leaving the: door wide open so that the West Coast Native reserve should be filched from the Taranaki Natives. He did not believe the country would agree to the last rem-' nant of Native land being taken away and the Natives allowed to remain paupers or placed on reservations. Regarding finance, he criticised Mr Allen's attitude, and quoted his statement to Loondon financiers that there was a surplus of £8,335,000 accumulated from 1891 to 1912 and compared this with his statement that he ( had found the finances of the country in a chaotic condition. Naval matters were not a party question but the people must see they could not afford to spend £BOO,OOO I year when the calls for roads, bridges and settlement were so great. New Zealand must roly on the British Navy. He quoted Hansard to show that, on Mr Massey's own admission, the conference which attempted to settle tfhe biggest strike in the history of the Dominion only lasted five minutes. The Liberals were not out for one section of the community but out for every section.