THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10411, 4 September 1911, Page 5

THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN.

MR J. T. M. HORNSBY AT LOWER TAUERU. (By "Our Special Reporter.) Mr J. T. M. Hornsby, the Government candidate for tlie Wairarapa seat, delivered a political address in the Public Hall at Lower Taueru on Saturday night. Mr Mcßae presided, and there was an attendance of between thirty and forty electors. THE LAND QUESTION. Mr Hornsby opened by stating that the greatest question of the day was the land question. Sir John Findlay had said that the greatest speech made at the Imperial Conference was by Mr John Burns, who said, in answer to the overseas Premiers' request that the people leaving Britain should come to British countries, that they might have the overflow, but pleaded to them not to empty the tank. Mr Hornsby said that we were bleeding tho Old Country to death by taking its population. In Scotland it was becoming rare to find Scotchmen doing the work on the land. The labour was done by Poles, Hungarians, and Italians. This, the speaker said, was a very bad state of affairs. Just recently he read in an English news-. paper that a great estate in Scotland had been let to an American millionaire for £IOO,OOO for sporting purposes—a tremendous waste of land. Something like 300,000 were leaving the British Isles yearly, and their places were being taken by aliens. While these people were trending outwards, Germany's population was increasing by 250,000 per annum, and they now .have a population of 60,000,000. The Germans were making up their minds that some day the struggle for supremacy would come. On/German merchant ships, Germans only were employed, while the British : merchant vessels were almost entirely manned by foreigners. At the base of all these troubles was the land question. Mr Hornsby instanced Denmark, which is not nearly the size of Sootland, but finds all its own requirements, and, in addition, exports £lB,000,000 worth of products. Their success was due to the multiplication of holdings, and the settlement of the people on small holdings. In Denmark there was not one homestead without the telephone connected, and the people enjoyed many comforts and conveniences that we know nothing of.. Contrast this with England, where they take care of the pheasants instead of the peasants, as was once said. In the Old Country large estates were kept for harbouring game for the rich land-owners and their friends to shoot in season. The speaker said he made these contrasts to draw attention to New Zealand—the land monopolies in this country.

NATIVE LANDS. Mr Massey had been addressing meetings at which he had continually stated that the Maoris were the only monopolists in this country, and Sir James Carroll had corrected him. If all the Native lands were divided up, cutting out mountain tops and lakes, it would be found that each Maori had thirty acres of land. And this was called land monopoly. Mr Massey advocated going back to the old system of free trade among Native.lands. In the early days Native land could be bought for a blanket, and if the old custom was reverted to the sale of the Maori lands would be on much the same scale, except that motor cars would be required in place of blankets. The Maoris would readily accept such an offer, for they were only like children and did not understand. In Hawke' s Bay a tremendous estate was sold for a new buggy and a spanking pair of ponies. Mr Hornsby said he could not understand how anybody could have the hardihood to take from the Natives the remnant of lamd they had left.

HAWKE'S BAY LAttDS

There were, he said, twenty-four European land-owners in Hawke's Bay, with an aggregate of 548,541 acres, of a total unimproved'value of £2,170,500, and the improvements were worth £732,903. Thus each had an average of 22,000 acres of land, the unimproved value of which was £90,000. In New Zealand there were 66,000,000 acres of land, and the unimproved value was £175,000,000. So that, in proportion with the average holding of those Hawke's Bay owners, New Zealand would be held by 3000 people. There were 84 holdings with an average acerage of a fraction below 100,000 acres each, being nearly 8J million acres owned by 84 people. One hundred and fifty owners field 50,000 acres each, being 7$ million acres in all, and 450 people held 7000 acres each, being 3,136,000 acres in all. This showed that 693 people owned nearly a third of New Zealand. The speaker said that there was very little land unoccupied, and this was being surveyed and settled as quickly as possible. A voice: "Query." Mr Hornsby said there was no query a/bout it. LAND SETTLEMENT. A report had just recently been laid on the table of the House, in which" it was shown that hundreds of thousands of acres had been opened up during the past year, and, he said, there was every probability that this year a million acres would be opened up. "I say," continued the speaker, "that when a man occupies 100,000 acres, he is monopolising land to the detriment of the people." Land was entirely different from other property. It wias the heritage of the people. One of the laws of Moses was that every fiftieth year was to be a jubilee year, when all land sold fifty years ago was to be returned to the original owner. The laws of Moses in connection with land matters were of the right class, and we were only just beginning slowly to copy these laws. in Parliament in 1901, Mr Hornsby said that he, with the minority, endeavoured to give the sons of land owners, who sold to the Government, the first right of picking a section without opposition, but the suggestion had been defeated by the House. "Whose fault was it that tho Government did not buy Brancepeth?" asked the speaker. "The position was this. When an owner intended selling to the Government he placed witnesses in the box to swear that the land was worth some tremendous sum'; but when the Government valuer came along and valued the land for the purposes of taxation it was generally considered to be greatly over-valued." The Government had appointed a Land. Purchase Board, the candidate we*it on to say, but it was when anything came between this Board and the owners that corruption and graft resulted. A statement had been made in this dis-

trict that when a man 'holding a Crown section, tinder the lease-in-per-petuity system, died, his family would bo immediately dispossessed. That was an unmitigated falsehood. The speaker read a clause from the Statute Book in support of his statement. He isaid that for anyone to tell the settlers that was a cruel falsehood. A man had come into his office :n Oarterton the other day in a terrible state of mind and asked him if the statement was correct. The speaker said that at first he laughed at the idea, but on seeing that his visitor was serious, he immediately assurred him, showing ' him the Act. The Government inj tended, in three or four years, to give the people the right to obtain the freehold. THE FINANCIAL POSITION. In dealing with the financial position Mr Hornsby said that various figures had been quoted, some correct and some incorrect. Mr Herbert had said at Masterton that the countrywas borrowing millions of money and tho country had nothing to show for it. On March 31st the country's debt was £51,078,122, of which amount no less than £50,701,000 was reproductive, a fact, that Sir James Carroll bad made Mr Massey acknowledge. A voice: "How about the Dreadnought?" Mr Homsby said that the Dreadnought came in the iraproductive section. The sum which was unproductive was £30,376,132. The interest to pay annually was £2,850,000, but the country did not have to find this amount. The profit on loans to local bodies was £246,574 and the interest £1,892,091, leaving the country to find £876,909. There was on the Statute Book an Aot which enabled the State to pay back the debt in 70 years. The sinking fund attached to tho loans for local lwdies would in time repay the loan itself. Yet he had read that the Government had borrowed and squandered money and had nothing to show for it. The candidate said it often grieved him to see young men reading certain newspapers (which, ho said, he need not mention the names of) and gloating over articles ' running down their own country. The fathers of these young men were those who came to New Zealand in the earlydays and toiled hard for the benefit of the next generation. It was a poor return for these young men to gloat over the "newspaper articles dragging this fair country in the dust. "That is my opinion of those who attempt to blacken their own country."

THE DREADNOUGHT GIFT. Reference was made to New Zea-» land's gift of a Dreadnought to the British Navy. Mr Hornsby said he , had agreed with the Government's action in this respect. Once land lost the supremacy of the sea, there would be no opening for NewZealand products. What was not required for local consumption might" just be thrown into the gullies and rivers for all the use it would be. And if Britain could keep the supremacy of tlhe sea by New Zealand's help, it was our duty to do our best. (Cheers). Such, a thing was not a party question. It would be a splendid thing if party wrangling could be done away with altogether. It was the custom every session for the Prime Minister to invite the members of the House to a dinner at Bellamy',s. After the dinner the Leader of the Opposition rises , to propose the health of the Prime Minister. He refers to the host in eulogistic terms and thanks liim for his hospitality, saying that they had no differences outside the House. The Prime Minister acts similarly towards the. Leader-of • the - Opposition," "arid " ' pours oil on his head, and says good things, and everything in the garden is lovely. "Now," said Mr Hornsby, "I want to appeal to your commonsense. If the leaders can do this over a glass of stout and a plate of oysters, why can't they do it in the House fj Simply because of the party spirit. One jman wanted to 'get one' on to another man. The outs want to get ! in and the ins are struggling to keep them out. It was just a struggle for one party to get in on the shoulders of the other. They don't appear to be there in the interests of the people, but it was their own interests they were looking after." EVERY MEASURE OPFOSSED. Continuing, the speaker said that if the Government introduced a measure good or bad, the Opposition opposed it tooth and nail. Hansard showed tlhat for twenty-one years every measure brought forward by the Government . had been fought to the last gasp by the Opposition. The candidate said he -knew that some of the members who believe in a measure vote against it simply because they thought it was their duty to vote with . their, party. The same thing applies when the Opposition had something to suggest. The Government would never hear of entertaining an Opposition proposal, even when they did think it a good one. STATE BANK. Mr Hogg had got into trouble for propounding a system for a State Bank, and had to resign from itfho Ministry. Not many would have agreed with Mr Hogg's proposal, but something was needed to control the banking of the country. Note issue had proved a failure in the United States, but New Zealand could takea lesson from the system in vogue in Canada, where the Government gives the people a guarantee. He mentioned the fact that the Bank of New Zealand was saved by paper money. He remembered seeing the crowds in Christchurdh, and similar crowds might, have been seen, else, when the Bank of New Zealand was in difficult straights and threatened to close down. A message was flashed through from the Government to the effect that they would give a guarantee for the paper money. The doors were opened and the people crowded in and were prepared to accept the notes, thus the bank was saved from financial ruin. It was the people that saved tha bank, and it was time that'. they reaped some of the profits. The Bank of New Zealand held all the Government business, and why should not the people have some of the immense benefits? German banks have* to contribute a certain percentage of their profits to the coffers of the State, but that was not done in this country.

EDUCATION. A lot of money was spent on Education, and the more we do spend the better. Education lifted the people to a higher plane. The cost of education was being increased, and the demands fbr old age pensions were getting larger. Mr Hornsby said that ten years ago, when in the House, he had asked the Minister for Education

why he would nob do something to relievo tlhiis cost. If there was a national fund they would never have to disappoint the old people and those benefiting from the systems of education. The Minister had replied that everything was working all right, and there was no necessity for any such precaution. Mr Hornsby said he then j suggested setting aside a certain • amount of Crown land, the revenue from which would be devoted to these funds. The suggested was not adopted until 1907, but we now had many education reserves as a security to the cost of education. The revenue obtained this way was nearly £1,000,000 a year, and this might increase. He told his hearers to look on those who tried to sacrifice the-e national endowments as enemies. ] STATE MONOPOLIES. I This opened the question of State monopolies. Strong objection had been taken to the Government's action in monopolising the rich reserves. While this question ra? under discussion some years ago, he remembered Mr Felix McGuire speaking on monopolies. He said: "If there are to be monopolies, for God's sake let us have a share in-them." Mr Hornsby reminded the people that they were the State, and that it was the people who had the benefit of State monopolies. CONCLUSION. Mr Hornsby thanked the audience for the panient hearing they had given him. He said that he had been in New Zealand for 37 years, during which time he had .always sought to do his best for others. If he got into tho House he would act las a man of the people, and do his best in their interests. He would always the weak. He was certain that the* Conservative party would never get into power in this country. It' was the labour men who were coming to the front as they had done in Australia. The Hon. Andrew Fisher was one of the ablest men in Australasia. When he went Home to the Conference he acted with a dignity which was an honour to the people of Australia. He urged his hearers to do all they could to make the democracy an educative one. He could not help thinking of the late' Mr T. E. Taylor's dying words to the labour men : "There is a magnificent chance for the Labour party if you lift the movement to a 'higher plane and acknowledge the religious element." Mr Hornsby said he had nothing to offer, but his services. When in Parliament before he had been instrumental in having six big estates cut up for closer settlement, and if again returned he would endeavour to have more estates cut up. It was a shame to think that twothirds of the dhildren attending Wairarapa schools would have to leave the district. Without closer settlement the land could only accommodate onethird of them. There was plenty of room for thousands of people in the Wairarapa. AVhat was wanted was an active land settlement policy, and if the present Government won't give it they will have to make room for another Government. He. would work for the people if he got their confidence at the elections in November next. ■ A. number of questions were asked and answered 'to tho evident satisfaction of the questioners. On the motion of Mr Ingram, the ! candidate was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.