POLITICAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 144, 12 November 1914, Page 3

POLITICAL.

THE STRATFORD SEAT. MR' J. B. HIKE OPENS HIS CAMPAIGN. There was, as usua in Stratford when pontics are to the fore, a very large attendance at Mr J. B. Hine's meeting 'at the Town Hall on Tuesday night. Mr W. P. Kirkwood, Mayor of Stratford, presided. t THE EMOTIONS UNPOBULAIR. Mr Hine prefaced his remarks on the .political questions of the day by referring to the attempts that had been made to postpone the election on account of the war. No doubt many of the electors wished that Uie election could have been put off,' because with the Empire engaged in a great conflict this was not an opportune time for unseemly dissensions or for any great questions to.be bitterly debated. He proposed in this contest to follow the lines of least resistance. Rumors' were being arcuated to the effect that the Reform Party was responiblc for the elections not being put off. The fact was, however, that three delegates from each side of the House were elected to confer on this question. The Government had (been in favor of postponing the election until after the war. but the Opposition wanted a postponement until only next March or April. The Government could not agree to this 1 , and therefore constitutional law had been followed and cne side was no more to blame than the other. STRATFORD'S ADVANCEMENT. Mr Hine referred with pleasure to the progress made by Stratford during the six years he had had the honor of. representing it in Parliament. Railway to the eastward had been carried on with greater rapidity. and now authorisation had been granted for a deviation which would avoid a Hot of difficult country near the Tan"garakau Gorge, and thus nable the line to be proceeded with with much more rapidity. Not only in so far as tlie railway was concerned had the district progressed. It had also gone ftliead in other ways, and in spite of the hard times prevailing at the present time of tin's year, would be one of the record year for the .Stratford electorate; also for the Dominion as a whole. FOR THE WORKERS. I Proceeding, Mr Hine spoke of what had been done by the Massey Government for the workers of New Z.aland. It had been said long b uire the Government took oifiec that if. they did get into power, the worker would be neglected, but as a matter of fact quite the reverse had happened'. Under the Massey Government workers' 'homes had gone up in Stratford—a thing unknown under the previous administration. From July 1, 1912, to Mareii 31, I!H4, 108 work re' dwellings had been erected in various pails of the Dominion at a total cost of £70,030, and since 'March 31, 87 other dwellings had been put in hand and 100 others authorised by the Cabinet, whereas during Sir Joseph Ward's period in office only 210 workers' dwellings were provided altogether, at a. total eost of £240,000. During the short time the Massey Government had been in ,o.l'ice. they had erected more workers' dwel-. lings that the previous administration did in six years. Further, the area of the sections had been extended from 5 acres to 25 acres.' It was Mr Masscy who first introduced the question of advances to workers, although he (the Premier) did not happen to have the. honor of placing it upon the statute book. The Massey Government had shown a very practical inter* .-t in the workers. The Government had increased the rate of interest on their savings in the Post Office Savings Bank from 3% to 3% per cent, and personally he thought it should be higher still. The deposits were utilis-. Ed by the Government and it should give at least the same rate of interest as it was prepared to pay the moneylender in England. BONUS TOR BABIES, The speaker did not think Milch of Sir Joseph Ward's bonus for babies, because' the money was being held by the State—who would, of course, pay interest —until the child reached fourteen years of age. The money should be paid out at the time when it was most lequired by the mother. Mr Hine said f that he had said a proposal before the Government which he had hoped to see included in its programme, but'he understood it had becln referred to the actuary with a view to ascertaining • as correctly as possible the probable cost to the Dominion of the scheme he had suggested. The Customs Duties amounted to £3,300,000 per annumi, so that with a population of a little over one million, £3 per head was contributed towards the Customs; and his proposal was that there should be a direct pay•mient or refund on • a (varying scale according to the income of the parents, and tihat these payments of refunds should be mode when the Child was between one year and fourteen years of age. For instance, if a man had mx children under fourteen years of age, •he would get £lB per annum. It was a far more liberal policy to the worker than that of the leader of the Opposition. THE UPPER HOUSE. Mr Hine was not sure that the reform of the Upper House was carried out on right lines, and whilst he had, as ,pledged, supported the Government right through in this connection, lie* would not bind himself on this occasion. If they returned him as their j member—and" he felt confident they Vould—he reserved for himself a free hand tn vote on any amendments thai niMit come forward as he thought fit." EDUCATION. The Education Bill, which cam: before Parliament this session, bad been in demand for years by the teaching profession in New Zealand, and had given almost universal satisfaction. He had also hoped to see a Dominion, promotion scheme, and lie thought t ! ':iis would follow. There had been a total increase in teachers' salaries representing £106,000', extra allowances to married men represented £2*5,000. and the .cost of improved stalling Which had been brought about bv the result of the. 'Bill was £58,000; so that altogether the. increased cost amounted to £lllO,000. The average salaries paid to male teachers in 1000 was £163 12s fld,_ whilst under the new condition of things it would be £2sl;'and so far'lis the lady teachers wero concerned their average salarv in WOO was £BS 12s (id, whilst in 1015," it would be £156. BIBDE IN SCHOOLS. " The candidate was sure the natioual ■life of JTbw Zealand would be -ihlifterf if the Bible was read in the schools. 1 arid lie was prepared to •support a' referendum' on' this question.

I FINANCE). Some time was devoted to ths question of finance, lit was not a fact, as stated by the Opposition, that the Government had been returned to reduce borrowing. Their platform wa3 "the Teform of the financial system of the Dominion by, inter alia, keeping borrowing within reasonable bound?, and 'administration without waste and ex travagance." He had never supported a non-borrowing policy, but had recently opposed the Government railway Joan schVine because he thought they wtTe borrowing too much. On the subjeet ol RAILWAYS, They had always been told, by the present Government and by its predecessors, that what our railway system needed most was more rolling stock and more engine power. Had the Government procured this additional equipment which they knew to be essential, then there might have been some justification for the talk of congestion at termini as the result of the extra traffic thus inaugurated. To his mind the accommodation at the terminal stations was ample. His hearers would remember the strike of last year. Was there any great congestion? No, and what little congestion occurred was caused, not by the lack of accommodation, but by the shortage of labor. For that reason he believed the Government, before borrowing three millions mostly for city conveniences, should have fully equipped the railway system with engines and rolling stock. 'lAs for Mr Hiley, he was doubtless a first-class man, but he should not have been quite as rapid in rushing the Dominion into this huge expenditure, for which there was still plenty of time. TAXATION. Referring to taxation, Mr Hine said that, according to Opposition speeches and writings, the increase in the graduated land tax was a myth. As a matter of fact the increased revenue under this head had been enormous. He contrasted the indicated policies' of the Government and the Opposition in favour of the Government, saying that under Sir Joseph Ward's projected scheme there was no differentiation between productive and unproductive properties, whilst Mr Massey proposed to more heavily load the property of the absentee, who stood to gain not by his own labor or the increased fruitfulness of his own land, but by the development of the country by the men who worked to make their lands productive to the last fraction possible. If the Massey Government "were returned to power these absentee owners, who waxed fat on the labor of I others, would be more heavily taxed than the worker, and he felt sure that those ta-ros were bound to be imposed, for the Government was sure to go back for another term. As for the talk about remission of duties on the necessaries of life, that sounded very nice, but there was very little in it. for the real necessaries of life carried very little Customs taxation. The heavy Customs duties were levied on tobacco, liquors, and luxuries gener- I ally. THE SECOND BALLOT. As for the repeal of the Second Ballot Act, the Government had fulfilled its pledges, despite the Opposition stonewall to prevent the abolition of the second ballot, which system had made very little difference, after all, in the last elections, for the leading candidates at the first ballot had still''led at the second, with but few exceptions. Of the few exceptions, three were gains for the Reform, three for Liberals, and some went to Labor. In the by-elections since the last general' elections, the Liberals had gone down every time. (A voice: So have the Reformers.) Mr Hine admitted this in two cases, but not in regard to the neighbouring electorate. This pointed to the decadence of the' Liberal party, and to the growth of the Labor party aided by the Liberals. There was an undoubted alliance, between those two parties, as was seen by the fact thai where both Liberals and Labor men were nominated for the same seat, arrangements were made by which either one or the other stood down. Challenged, he quoted Wellington South, Drey and Lyttelton. Let Labor get the upper hand in this way, and what would happen? Laws would be enacted to allow men to strike just when they liked, and to break agreements on the least provocation. Red Feds had no respect for agreements. The Liberal-Labor combination would bring about disaster. He would far sooner see the Liberals than Labor in power. Replying to an interjection about proportional representation, the speaker said that proportional representation had already been provided for the Upper House. (Laughter, and cries of "Why not for the Lower House, too?") EXPENDITURE. Replying to the Opposition statement that the present Government Ind increased the annual expendituie, lie said the Reformers had never been pledged to reduce it but to reduce "'wastefal expenditure." This the Govcnmen; ha.! done. The increases wore all Roinii. and he challenged his luareis to say which of the following in i.'civs I'-juld be objected to: Amounts, paid .to teachers' puimc si-vice; and railways superannuation founds to make them actuarilaly sound;; increases of salaries to-civil teivants, policej school tcaeiitrs, and railway servants; military pensions for veterans of the New Zealand war; incrtiise of old age pensions by-redoing women's qualifying age limit and in- 1 creasing the property qualification; pensions to willows, for which scheme '-c gave, credit to Sir Joseph Ward: and customs concessions. They had been told of increased taxation, but who could name one single instance? Taxation per head of population might have increased by font' of live or six shillings, but this mciely meant that people were spending more money, or that prices of commodities had gone up. Jlr Hine denied .that customs taxation had increased. He Mentioned the establishment of public buildings sinking fund, to which £25,000 had been-paid out of the Consolidated Fund. As for the statement that the surpluses had decreased, this- was only because ufider the present system surpluses consisted only of honeys which should go to make them' lip, not as was the ease in the days of the Liberal administration when' the cash from sales of land was paid into' the consolidated revenue. Under the present system this money was paid into a; fund for the purchase of further lands for settlement, which .was as it should be. (Hear, hear). ■Mr Hine, referring to pensions, touched on the invalidity pension scheme, •.which, he regretted, was not on the statute book, but the Ministry said "the war had had something to do with it, and it was down on the list for next year." Ho did not believe in pensions for unemployed. Better that the State should find work for tliem. He certainly believed in the invalidity pension scheme.

DEFENCE. Mr Hine strongly attacked the Opposition on defence matters. It was not so long since the country had been flooded with the Opposition cry about expenditure on a "toy navy." "We don't hear anything about the toy navy now," he said, and he remarked that, on the contrary, we would give anything to have a reliable and dependable ship of war attached to New Zealand now for the protection of our trade and our coastal towns. What had Mr Wilford said'in that very hall? "So sure as. the Massey party is renurned to power, so sure will we have a 'toy navy' in the Pacific." To-day we wanied something in the Pacific. (Hear, hear). He would not advocate a big expenditure 'on a local navy, but we should have some protection against marauders. If we had a ship like H.M.S. New Zealand, we should feel safe. Now we were actually depending for security upon the fleet of our sister State, Australia, to whom we were very grateful. It stung a little, did it not, that we had to depend on a sister State to protect our trades? He did not ask for a na'vy apart from Admiralty control, but hoped to see some provision made for the protection of the New Zealand coasts. He himself had supported Sir Joseph Ward's action in giving the battleship. The Opposition had made the defence question a party question, particularly about the expeditionary force, when Mr Allen arranged it at Home. Defence should be kept a non-party question. He hoped that the defence scheme would continue to grow, and that there would be no shirkers. Men might shirk today, for the reason that many of the headquarters staff had gone with the expeditionary force. LAND SETTLEMENT. It was ridiculous to state that the Massey Government had placed no people on the land, for the figures showed that this department of the State activities had been more active under the present administration than under its predecessors in office. UNDER WHICH FLAG? Concluding, the candidate asked his audience, "Under which flag do you prefer to be?" Would they follow the flag of the party which stood for freedom and progress, or under the flag of the Red Federation? Should the Opposition party succeed at the polls, the 1 Government would be dominated by foe Red Fed clement. The members of the Reform party felt that they were quite justified in asking for a continuance of the support of the constituencies, on account of their progressive legislation. Not only had the Government disappointed its enemies; it had more than pleased its friends in ever}' possible way. It had not 'carried out a policy of vindictivencss. There had been no such thing as "color" in the making of pub-, lie appointments. There was no political patronage now. The Public Service Commissioners had removed all that and he challenged any Liberal to advocate the repeal of the Public Service Act. Any State officer jvho went I to an M.P. now for assistance in securing promotion speedily got his walking ticket. But the discerning eye of the public had noted all the improvements effected under the Massey regime, and he was sure that when the time i came for the people to decide the Massey party would be returned to power. (Applause). QUESTIONS. Mr C. D. Sole: "Do you still contradict the statement made by you on the platform in November, 1911, that when your party got access to the pigeon-holes of- the Treasury they might disclose more evidence of Tanimanyism than you ever dreamed of, as published in the Stratford Evening Post report of your {meeting?" Mr Hine could not remember ever having made the statement, and challenged the questioner to confront him with the report quoted. Then ho would be able to answer. ' Mr C. D. Sole asked the candidate to explain why the Reform party and Mr Hine himself had travelled the country in 1911 telling the people that the Liberal surpluses were not worth the paper they were printed on, Beeing that when the "Reform" Government wanted to raise a loan in London they had published a prospectus stating that these surpluses were actual cash surpluses. Was this done to deceive the British money-lenders, or were the Liberal surpluses really cash ones? Mr Hine denied ever having said ,thc surpluses were bogus. He had said: and he still said, that they contained money that ought never to have been paid into the Consolidated Fund. No. Mr Hine did not know whether Mr Massey and Mr Mander had shares in the "ostrich farm" through which the Waiuku railway was to run. As for the purity of their action if audi were the ease, all he would say was that it was very natural, but probably the railway j would have been authorised there in any case. Mr Hine was strongly in favour of granting full civil and political rights to State servants, and said tha present Government had already given an instalment of this freedom which had been denied the civil service by the Liberals. , Mr Hine ridiculed a suggestion that he should retire in favour of Mr Hawkins if his figures were proved incorrect. ;Mr (Hawkins had made such a challenge, but how ridiculous, he said, for a man to quote a lot of figures from Hon. Allen's Budget and ask him (Mr Hine) to contradict them! Mr Hine was not -perpared to accept Mr Osmond's statement, that in the first quarter's figures under the operation of ' the amendment of the Valuation Act the revenue showed a falling off, THANKS AND CONFIDENCE. On the motion of Messrs.- John Smith I and James Robson, a hearty vote of thanks and renewed confidence was ac- j corded Mr Hine. Mr Smith eulogised I Mr Hine's success in obtaining Government grants to meet the "Stratford •County's roading requirements. THE TAUMAItUNn SliAf. Mr C. & Wilson, after a most erfouraging Uiiit of the bsickblocks. will arrive in Waitafti ffl Monday, the Kith.. when lie will address' {lie electors. He irejports himself iis exceedingly ■pleased with the tour through the country. In most eases public v.'oife iuv progressing favorably.