A POLITICAL ADDRESS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9054, 13 February 1908, Page 6

A POLITICAL ADDRESS.

HON. G. FOWLDS AT DANNE-

VIRKE,

BY TELEGRAPH —i'KESS ASSOCIATION. DANNEVIRKE, February 12. The Hon. G. Fowlds, Minister of Education, delivered a political address at Dannevirke to-night. T.ie Mayor presided, and there was a fair attendance of electors. Mr Fowlds was received with applause. He dealt firstly with education, and said that the position of any country depended on its education system. The increase in expenditure was alarming, but he believed it was the best investment the country could have. In 1907 the expenditure was £578,595, and it had risen to £923,572. The ideal of the education system was to provide free education from the primary school to tne University. He advocated better payment of country teachers, and a proper classified system of promotion. He praised the work of the Health Department, and considered the Purs Food Act and Infant Life Protection Act would do much good for the people. Ha foreshadowed an improvement in the Hospital *ind Charitable Aid Act, and in the law regarding mental hospitals. He commanded the Premier's remarks regarding the attitude of the Government towards revolutionary Socialism. No man hiKl a right to more than an equal opportunity, and no man had a right to put up with less. The aim of the Government was to secure justice between man and man and the prevention of monopolies by State ownership and operation. There should be no granting of special privileges to any man unless he paid annually the value of the privilege held. He commended the Land Endowment and Land Tax Acts, and claimed that the Native Land Act was an honest attempt to settle the native land problem. The remission of £405,250 in the tariff was a great benefit to workers. He anticipated that the system of annuities would, in time, relieve the oldage pension expenditure and provide the old with means of securing independence. The mention by Mr Fowlds of a special grant of £200,000 per annum for roads was received with applause. A hearty vote of thanks to Mr Fowlds, and continued. confidence in the Government, was carried with applause. «