TAUMARANUI'S LATE MEMBER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 251, 23 April 1912, Page 8

TAUMARANUI'S LATE MEMBER

MR. W. T. JENNINGS BANQUETTE!) i SPEECHES BY MINISTERS. i TREMENDOUS ENTHUSIASM. ; (By Telegraph—Own Reporter.) 1 Waitjira, Last Night. t Tremendous enthusiasm marked the t whole proceedings in connection with to- t night's complimentary social tendered to ; Mr. W. T. Jennings, ex-member of Par- ( liament for this district. Ministers' ; visits to Waitara have, for years, been : like angels' visits, "few and far be- i tween," but to-night we have two mem- < bers of the Cabinet in Waitara, and, 1 what is more, one of them, the Hon. Dr. < Rangihiroa, is practically a Waitara boy, having been born at Urenui, only ten : miles from the hall in which he is at present an honored guest. The Ministerial party consists of the Hon. Geo. Laurenson, Minister of Marine and other important branches of the service, Mrs. and Master Lanrenson, and Dr. and Mrs. Te Rangihiroa, or as he is more familiarly called, and as is certainly, as he says, more often pronounced correctly, Dr and Mrs. Peter Buck. On arrival of the mail train at the station to-night there was a big gathering of residents to welcome the Ministers, headed by Mr. W. F. Jenkins, thrice Mayor of WaitaTa, and now buckling on his harness for a fourth term of office, and Mr. Jennings. But the welcomes and, introductions of the. pakehas were as nought compared to the vociferous haka performed bv a large party of Maoris in honor of the I Hon. Te Rangihiroa and his wife. The local committee had made excellent arrangements, and soon the Ministerial party, which is housed at two hotels, was enjoying, with much gusto, Waitara's best, and it was good. The Ministers and their friends should prove very amiable and encouraging to-night to a deputation suggesting that the diningcar on the mail train should not be j taken off at Aramoho, as is at present . Clifton Hall was crowded, and dancing w»s in progress when the Ministers made their way to the stage, and they and "Bill" Jennings were given a heart warming reception. DR. BUCK'S SPEECH. Dr. Buck preceded his chief, and expressed his gratitude to Waitara friends i for the enthusiastic welcome, and par- J ; ticularly for remembering him and referring to him as "Peter" Buck. He ' was proud to be a member of Parliament, - proud to be a member of the Cabinet,! 1 and proud to be a native of this <lis- < ' trict. He touched briefly on Maori questions, and said to those who complained of the liberal treatment meted out to the Maori, "Give the Maori a chance, and if he does not grasp his opportunity then, by the natural law of evolution, he must go to the wall." He referred in highly eulogistic terms to Mr. Jennings' services given to his constituents, and to his popularity amongst his fellow-members, who recognised his sin- : cerity of purpose and his faithful and ■ constant advocacy of the claims of his • jbackblocks constituents. He hinted that i if the people were given an opportunity . they would return to the old love. ; The Hon. G. Laurenson commenced by . referring in the most complimentary . terms to the late member for Taumaru- ; nui, Mr. W. T. Jennings, who, he said, . was absolutely without exception the , hardest worker on behalf of his constituency of any member in the North Island. His special hobby was FIGHTING FOR THE BACKBLOCKS ' SETTLERS, , ajnd tnere was no man w?iom lie had j been moro surprised to see defeated, j when the numbers went up at the last t general election, than Mr. W. T. Jennings. He would say also that no man j had deserved better of his constituents , than Mr. Jennings. "But," he continued, ' "knowing Mr. Jennings as I do and j. knowing his indomitable courage and a knowing of the great reaction which has taken place in the country since Decem- " ber, I feel sure that if a fresh election were to take place to-morrow, Mr. W. T. 5 Junings would head the poll against 1 almost any competitor." (Applause.) j; THE LAST ELECTION a was one of the most extraordinary elec- ~ tions he had ever known in New Zea- • land. By inuendo the Opposition Party ' had condemned the Government for borrowing and for increasing the expenditure, while on both points they had 1 backed up the Government in the House. In round figures the Government had borrowed nineteen millions from 1900 to r 1911. Of this amount railways had abr sorbed five millions, land for settlement f one and a half millions, advances to set--5 tiers, workers and local bodies seven mil--1 lions. These accounted for about thiri teen and a half millions, and of the - balance, with the exception of defence, . almost every single item had been in- • vested in reproductive works. While - they admitted that the national expendi- ; ture had grown, every item of that could . be satisfactorily explained, and the Op- . position had not yet challenged any litem, with the exception of a vote 'of i £ISOO for a financial adviser in London . —a single item in the estimates in five s years. The Minister observed that to . talk around the country as they did and to condemn what they had always sup- | ported was nothing short of "political , cant." Now this party, which had hitlierto opposed all the progressive legislation of the last twenty years, had the , effrontery to come forward and say: ' 'Tut us into power and we will administer the legislation which we have al- | ways opposed." TARANAKI'S PROGRESS. . Passing on, the hon. gentleman stated : that of all the places in New Zealand I no place had grown more wonderfully under the Liberal and progressive legis- . lation of the last twenty years than Taranaki. While the rest of New Zealand had shown a phenomenal growth unequalled in any 'of the Australian States, Taranaki had beaten the rest of New Zealand two and a half times over, so if gratitude had any place in polities, Taranaki ought to be the strongest supporter of the present administration. Much of the prosperity, not all 'of it, of course, had been brought, about by the fact that the Government had supplied cheap capital to the settlers 1 of Taranaki, to enable them to develop their holdings Cheap capital, he continued, had been one 'of the factors which had put Taranaki into the magj nifieent position that she now occupies. .This factor, together with the advent of cool storage and the refrigerator, backed I up by the fine type of settlers drawn

from the best of stock in New Zealand, had made Tarnnaki what she is to-day. | g One item which showed the wonderful t growth of Taranaki was that while the increase e" •.'"■"'btion during five years J was 14 per cent., while the amount of J income tax was 55 per cent., which meant t that the people who were earning over 5 £3OO a year had grown about four times s as fast as the population. One feature had always struck him about Taranaki, t and that was that it had, on the aver- i: age, the smallest holdings of land among 1 the provinces of New Zealand. The t average in Taranaki was 211 acres. In i Canterbury the average was nearly 600 •< acres, and in ITawke's Bay the average v also ran into very high figures. The set- \ tiers of Taranaki did not know what a curse land monopoly was. "We in Canterbury have experienced it, and the result has been to practically depopulate the province. Hawke's Bay has had the same experience, and one thing the Liberal Party has to address itself to in the immediate future is to break up the large estates, with a view of their • being settled by the same type of men as those settled in Taranaki. ATTACKS ON SIR JOSEPH WARD, i At last election a great furore had 1 beeA got up against Sir Joseph Ward, . but it had to a large extent died away, and a remarkable feature about the country was that if one asked nine men out of ten about it they would- get a reply to the effect that while they had wanted a change in the administration In charge of the country, they had "no time for Massey and his crowd." The Minister declared: "I believe that is the real sentiment of ttie country." The Opposition had put up a platform that was the funniest platform he had ever read. The Reform Party's own planks were no good, and what there was good they had stolen from the Liberal Party. Mr. Laurenson thought that the country j ' had no time for the extremist at cither j ' end of our political system, neither for the Tory on the one hand and the revo- j ' lutionary Socialist on the other, but it j did want sane, progressive legislation and clean administration. ; THE COUNTRY'S INCREASE. j , The wealth of the Dominion had inj creased to an extraordinary degree in I recent years. The exports and imports j had gone up by leaps and bounds, and per capita they were now the richest people in the school, but after all £ i s. d. did not express true progress. What they had to build up in this country was J 1 a sober honorable race of men and I women; free of the «urse of the millionaire on the one hand and the pauper on/ ! the other, where every man and every 1 • i woman would have a chance to develop > j all that was best in them, and where ; the ambition would be not to accumulate 1 wealth, but to be a country distinguished ' for the type of human beings it pro--1 dueed. 1 A PRESENTATION, j During (lie evening a presentation of a purse of over a hundred sovereigns " was made to Mr. Jennings, on behalf of , ' his supporters and admirers in this por-1 tion of his late electorate. The pro--9 gramme was interspersed with songs and " dancing, and despite the overtaxing of the accommodation of the hall, the whole 1 ® function went off with the greatest eolat. Y The presentation was made by Mr. Jenkina, Mayor of Waitara, who placed Y on record his personal appreciation of the services given by Mr. Jennings to ' Waitara and the district generally. He '' had been greatly surprised that Mt. Jene nings had been defeated at the Decern-. ber election, and feared that there must '■ have been some misrepresentations to bring about his defeat. There was loud cheering as Mr. Jennings accepted the gift, and "He's a d jolly good fellow" nearly raised the roof. 1) Mr. Jennings, who was .received with tret mendous applause, said that he could »- not adequately express his gratitude for n the splendid reception and presentation, s the heartiness of which tended to take 1, off, to a great extent, tile pangs of bitd terness felt at his rejection. He would d be less than a man if he did not say this., ■s He felt that for nine years of strenuous' i- service it was not a fair return, for he n had worked hard and with much i?ood- ?. will, hut he must not talk further of it the past. He had to express to the two . Ministers present his gratification at their kindness in coming such a long dis- .. tance to do him honor. That they had done this rewarded his nineteen years y of political life. He expressed, also, hie heartfelt gratitude to the ladies and the i- Mayor and his committee in Waitara, j with Mr. Farmer as secretary, for what , they had done for him, and for the kind(j ness shown him at election time. It had 0 been a bitter fight. He knew it was to be the fight of his life before he left t Wellington. He knew Taranaki had .. turned renegade. Messrs. Major and 1 Walter Syines had been turned down, ,_ and at the time of the election he was e the only Liberal member left. He knew he had a)ll the Opposition members in Taranaki against him and, too, the ree arrangement of boundaries had taken ■ t '_ out some of his strongholds. With all (I this he was beaten, but not disgraced. ( He then recalled what Waitara was ten v years ago when he first became member for the district Its population had in n the interim increased from 600 to 1000, and the rateable value of property from 0 £47,000 to £150,000. It had now a d water supply, electric light in the streets, the streets improved in formation, and it would shortly have a new , bridge over the river. The Waitara Mail had said the other day that when ' the first pile of the bridge came to be ' driven the Minister of Public Works would be asked to perform the ceremony. He hoped it would be so, and if he did come he hoped that the county council would get on to him with a' view of grants for improving their roads and :1 bridges. Mr. Jennings reviewed the pro:1 gressive legislation passed by the Liberal Government, and showed its advantages. , He commented on the fact that all these measures had been opposed tooth and . nail by the party with which Mr. Massey 1 wa s associated, and he added that , though that party said they were not t against that legislation yet they did not 3 support it when they had the chance in , the House but opposed it. He asked the < j people to beware of wolves in sheep's . clothing. It was said that the Liberal , 1 arty was against the freehold, but r«t cent legislation giving the option of the t freehold carried its denial. He ascribed , the progress of Taranaki to close settle- ) nicnt, and said close settlement must i . be the watchword of the province, lie! i stressed the need for better organisation . ot the Liberal Party in this district, and throughout the Dominion, and said tint ■ the people should not allow ihemselvei I to be caught by garden parties and the , like. Every woman who was the wife of a worker was just as good as the woman ! of leisure, and it was to the workers particular interest to see that the progressive party was kept in power. Mr Wilson wherever he went began talking about the ladies, and he seemed to be a great ladies' man. If he (Mr. Wilson) could show a letter from a lady such as ie (Mi Jennings) had received he would he glad to shake him by the hand. Mr Jennings here read two quotations from ladies expressing their gratitude to him for what he had done for them and theirs, and a third from the Tailoresses' Union. ITe believed still that this was a Liberal electorate, and that the people were progressive, so much so that if he or someone else closely identified with the progressive policy came before them at a future election the people would give their loyal support. He deeply appreciated the presence of the people there that evening, and wished them all prosperity, and that goodwill and contentment would prevail. The speaker concluded amidst cheers.

The presentation included a lotely gold brooch from the ladies of the district to Mrs. Jennings. Then came the vote of thanks to the Mayor for presiding, and cheers for Mr. Jennings in pakelia and Maori, the latter led by Dr. Buck, and cheers for the Ministerial party. Dancing was then resumed. The following resolution was carried by hearty acclamation; "That this meeting expresses its thanks to the two members of the Cabinet for their addresses this evening, and expresses its confidence in the Liberal administration, and it* •opinion that the newly-formed. Cabinet will carry out a policy satisfactory to the , welfare of the people of the Dominion."