“TOSS FOR IT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 504, 6 November 1928, Page 12

“TOSS FOR IT”

MR. OSBORNE ON HARBOUR BRIDGE GRANT BELIEVER IN EVOLUTION Mr. A. G. Osborne, Labour candidate for Waitemata, last evening accused his opponents of endeavouring to fog the electors by wrangling over who was to get the cx'edit for the £SOO grant for the preliminary work desired by the Harbour Bridge Association. Let them spin a coin for the credit, and then let it drop, he suggested. The electors might then hear something of their politics. There was great need tor political education, and the Labour Party was the only one supplying that need, he said. In one way all the bother over the credit for the £SOO did not matter, for both claimants were heading to political oblivion rapidly. Reiterating that Labour included in its ranks people from all walks of life, Mr. Osborne claimed that through the annual conferences of the party the rank and file really made the party policy. On the other hand, the Reform policy was made by a manifesto issued once every three years by an unknown executive and issued by the Prime Minister. The United Party policy was manufactured at a conference in Wellington, but what was actually banded to the public was different. His opponents had charged him with being a Socialist. He ddi not' deny it. If he was not he w r ould not be on the Labour platform; but that did not mean that he was a revolutionary. On the contrary, he was an evolutionist. Civilisations had come and gone and no one imagined that our present system of society was not going to change. It might not in 20 years or 100 years, but it would be bettered all the time. Mr. Osborne said he feared God, and honoured the King as much as Mr. Coates, and resented the dragging ot the national emblem of Empire in the mire of politics.