THE ELECTIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3027, 26 October 1908, Page 5

THE ELECTIONS.

It is probable that Mr Ivess will contest the Sehvyn seat in the Government interests. A meeting of ladies favourable to Mr J. Hunter's candidature will be held in the Dominion Hall at 3 o'clock this afternoon. Mr W. F. Massey (Leader of the Opposition) will deliver a speech in reply to Sir Joseph Ward at Feilding to-night. Some idea of the extensiveness of the Taumarunui electorate may be obtained from the fact that there will probably be about 100 polling booths set up in the district. Very j few electorates require more than fifty.

Sir Joseph Ward informed a Dunedin "Star" representative that he did not anticipate a second ballot in more than a dozen electorates, and the cost would not exceed £6,000, as against £30,000 stated from some platforms. j "It is no use," remarked a free ' and enlightened elector at a Christchurch meeting, "it is no use waiting till a man is comparatively in his grave before paying him an oldage pension. The right place to start the old-age pension is in the cradle." Mr W. C. Buchanan held a very successful meeting at Bideford on Saturday evening. There was a large and representative gathering of settlers. Mr Carswell, an old settler of the district, occupied the chair. Mr Buchanan was well received, and at the end of his address received a vote of thanks. Mr John Hunters addressed the electors at Rangitumau on Saturday' evening, the attendance being very satisfactory. The candidate's speech was on the lines of previous addresses, and dealt chiefly with issues of importance to tarmers. Mr Hunter received a hearty vote of thanks. "At every city in New Zealand you will see Ministers' railway carriages, costing thousands of pounds, that are lying idle most of the year, while the foolish public ride in cattle trucks. If the Ministers are not satisfied with one of our firstclass carriages, they had better stay at home," said Mr E.G. B. Moss in an election speech at Remuera the other night. Mr John Hunter will address the electors of Masterton at the Kuripuni Hall at 8 o'clock to-night, when he will reply to Mr Hogg on the questions of closer settlement and timber duty. Mr Hunter will speak at the following places during the week:—Mauriceville West to-morrow (Tuesday), Mauriceville East on Wednesday, Kakariki on Friday, and at Newman on Saturday. Mr Hogg addressei a well-attended meeting in the Schoolhouse, Mauriceville West, on Saturday evening. Mr Wm. Jessen occupied the chair. The address chiefly dealt with the land question and the Dairy Regulations and Shearers Accommodation Bill, both of which the speaker said had excited some alarm among the settlers. Mr Hogg's assurance that the farmers had nothing to fear in the shape of drastic legislation was loudly applauded. He received a hearty vote of thanks.

Mr Buchanan held a good meeting at Greytown on Friday night. He ridiculed the idea of a Minister travelling the country explaining dairy regulations, and sarcastically referred to the £I,OOO vote for the Ruamahanga bridge, when £5.000 was l wanted. He condemned extravagant ■ expenditure on railway stations in ' the South Island, and stated that the < Manawatu Company showed a profit i of 6 per cent, after paying local : taxes, and the Government showed 3 per cent. The new tariff pressed heavier on country settlers. He scorned the Second Ballot Act as a thing "made in Germany." A vote of thanks was passed. Mr C. M. Gray's first meeting in the Christchurch North campaign may be said to have resulted in favour of Mr T. R. Taylor, writes the Christchurch correspondent of the "Post." It was made clear that Mr Gray did not command the sympathy of the'majority of the electors present. He was called upon to answer an unusually large number of questions, generally of n hostile character, and though the chairman decided that the concluding vote of ! thanks was carried, hearty cheers t were given for Mr Taylor, and equally hearty hoots for Mr Gray. One of the few straight-out fights in Canterbury will be that between Mr Buddo and Mr Moore for the Kaiapoi seat. Mr Moore ran his opponent to a very short head in 1905, and the feeling this year is that positions will probably be reversed when the numbers go up. The alteration of boundaries has placed Papanui and Belfast in the Kaiapoi electorate, and it is doubtful how iar this may affect the result, though it is thought that the freezing works votes—of which a good proportion may be cast for Mr Buddo—may be set off by the Papanui votes, which will go for Mr Moore. Some of the Cust district, which used to be a Buddo stronghold, has been thrown into Hurunui, and all round Kaiapoi itself the sentiment in favour of Mi Moore is strong. "One often hears the cry of inflated land values," said the Premier in Christchurch on Friday. "Well, I was in a district the day before yesterday where geniune farmers were buying land at from £26 to £4O per acre. In con versation with some of these men I was told that they could get good returns even from land at that price. They were not speculative buyers either. Most of them were small farmers. They pointed out that the butter production of the land was now higher, and that they were getting 11 d per lb for butter fat is against 8d lately ruling. Sixpence per pound would pay them, so that you see the rise in land values is perfectly legitimate, and nothing is so convincing as actual concrete facts. These men are full of courage. Thay know they are doing well, and their purchasing land at high prices is fully justified by the results. At Feilding the only fear is that they will not have enough trucks to carry away the stock that will be despatched from that station alone." "Instead of us having to fight trusts through the State as is done in America through President Roosevelt," said Mr F. M. B. Fisher in a political speech at Wellington on Friday night, "tho time is coming when we shall have to fight a great trust in the State itself; that will be one of the great fights in the future." The State, he pointed out, \

I was paying at x the present time about 3£ million pounds per annum in [ wages. It. was employing, roughly, . some 30,000 people. It had directly / under its thumb a Public Works expenditure of 2$ millions, and in addition it had all the patronage that only a Government could have. The 30,000 Government employees Influenced, if they did 1 not control, another 30,000, so that the Government at the present time, owing to the nationalisation of such services as railways and public trusts, were able to produce an influence upon 60,000 people, and they controlled an f expenditure of six millions of money. And what vas the position? Un the day of the last election a certain newspaper's leading article as far as he could remember the words, commenced as follows:—"Let the Civil Service to—day remember what the Government is &oing to do for it in the days to come." It was only necessary to increase that spirit to increase the number of the State employees, and the amount of wages paid by the State, and one-half of the community who were Hot employees of the State could eventually have to stand by and see the employees of the State compelling it to give them what thev wanted.