"Asleep in the House”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 498, 30 October 1928, Page 1

"Asleep in the House”

CURSE OF PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS MR. MASON’S ALLEGATIONS “Professional politicians are the curse of any country, and in New Zealand to-day we are overburdened with them,” said Mr. Kells Mason, the United candidate for Manukau. to a moderate audience in the Methodist Hall, Greenwood’s Corner, last evening. Mr. S. rj?.. Jones, chairman -of the Mount RoskilT "**Road Board, presided over a peaceful meeting. Mr. Mason declared that Sir Joseph Ward was the only man in the Dominion to-day with the necessary ability to lead the people out of the morass into which the Coates Government had landed them. His castigation of Reform and Parliament was both severe and incisive.

“I have seen members in the House with their legs crossed on the benches fast asleep and actually snoring,” he said. “I have also seen a member of the Reform Party so drunk on the floor of the House that his utterances verged on obscenity.

“Parliament, after all,” he continued, “is only a huge business, and the members are the directors of the National Company. Twenty per cent, are workers and eighty per cent, loafers.” If it were not for the fear of creating another army of civil servants, he would be in favour of State control of the liquor traffic because we should then get better beer. As it was he would support a twoissue ballot paper, drastic reform of the trade, an extension of the tenure for licensees and the separation of the liquor question from Parliamentary polls.

The candidate received a unanimous vote of thanks and confidence.