MASTERTON'S MEMBER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10101, 24 September 1910, Page 3

MASTERTON'S MEMBER.

OPPOSES THE DEFENCE BILL,

A STRANGE INDICTMENT,

Speaking in the House of Representatives on Thursday night on the Defence Act Amendment Bill, Mr A. W. Fogg, Member fjr Masterton, said he was not in favnur of the scheme. He tnought that tne ol the defence in this country bad been increaied unnecessarily. The scheme would add half a million to the taxpayers' burden and the young men were being robbed of their physical liberty. He had yet to be told that the Anglo-Saxons were not equal to the Germans, the Swiss, fie Chinese, and people of other countries. Ha admitted that physical drill was a grand thing buth for boys and for girls. To say that military drill was. absolutely necessary was completely wrong. He was surprised that on every possible occasion the example of Germany, Japan and Switzerland was brought out before New Zealand. Had Germany ever produced a Johnson or a Jeffries? (Laughter.) Had any country on the Continent produced a Sandow? No, if one wanted to find people of muscle and courage one had to go to Old England. (Applause.) New Zealand would do all right if it husbanded its recourses and developed the country and its' manhood and'gave them a good education. Then they would be able to battle their way through life not only in New Zealand, but in all parts of the world. (Hear, hear). What had we in New Zealand to fear? Were we pigeon-hearted? Why should we rely on firearms and put man'trapa in the gardens when there were no desperadoes about? The attempt to promute war was made for trade purposes. The jingoes were the mercantile classes who wanted to go to war bo that they might amass wealth—so that they might get rid of their rotten meat, of their shoddy, and of their bad smokeless powder. (Laughter). All 1 this talk about militarism was due to the

scaremongers, who were more to be shunned than the pickpockets, Why, the scaremongers went to church and, during prayers, with their eyes turned down, scanned army contracts. (Laughter). Germany, Japan, and other countries wanted to trade with New Zealand; they did not want to relieve the Prime Minister of his responsibilities; nor to assume the national and private debt of £15,000,000. Who brought Lord Kitchener here? The Prime Minister would say the country. If the country or the Empire was ever in danger, thousands of young men would hasten to offer their services. They did not want to look like an Assyrian hawker's window, wearing tinsel and sometimes a silver medal. It was his opinion that the money that was proposed to be spent might just as well be put in the bottom of the sea.