INGLEWOOD NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 152, 3 December 1914, Page 8

INGLEWOOD NEWS.

POLITICAL MEETING. (From our Own. Correspondent.) Mr W. H. Hawkins, the Liberal candidate, addressed a fair audience in the Town Hall on Tuesday night. Mr G. Young, the Mayor, occupied the chair, and explained that as the boundaries of the. Stratford and Taranaki electorates were' quite adjacent to Inglewood that they had the privilege of hearing the speakers of two electorates.

On tlie assumption that the platform of his party had already been well expounded throughout the country, the speaker confined his speech to criticising "Reform," and it is certainly, from the writer's point of view, many a year since such a trenchant critic spoke in Inglewood. Although there were intcrjectors right throughout the meeting, he was always prepared to give them plenty of latitude, and to deal with each individual intcrjector as the occasion arose. ,

Mr Hawkins opened his speech by stating that although there was no great political issue at stake in the present election, there was still one important point, and that was that the ; present Government had fallen far short of what the country had expected of them. He dealt extensively with the newspapers of this country* the principal of which, he claimed, were run by and in the interests of the wealthy : classes, and that the "Dominion'' was principally owned by forty-five large landowners, and therefore was not run in the interests of the small man. He | claimed that the functions of a newspaper was to publish all the news and doings regardless of political bias. Bile the present party in power had slandered and abused their predecessors they were rot immuned from corrupt practices, and yet they had failed to prove anything against their opponent* during their term of ofl'ice. Amidcheers and hoots, lie referred to the lamentable disaster at Huntly, and ini fened that it was to lack of sympathy | of the Mas.sey Government with the coal mineis that the disaster was. mainly due, as had tin; proposed legislation been earned out the awful loss of life | would have been averted. All his remarks were punctuated by facts and figures, which lie claimed to be correct. In answer to questions he claim to be a freeholder, with the optional tenure a principle which he had always fought for. He was not conversant with Sir Joseph Ward's agricultural bankin" .scheme, but he felt sure that some such scheme was in the right direction. He explained at length Sir Joseph Ward's bonuses for babies, and siiowed how bcnefically it might work out, especially to tiie working classes. He believed that the Liberal party had adhered most clohelv to those fundamental principles of political economy as advocated by experts 011 this important subject the world over. Mr M. MeMahon moved a hearty vote of thanks to the speaker for his able address; this was seconded by Mr D. i odd, and carried unanimously.