THE ELECTIVE EXECUTIVE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 6 December 1912, Page 5

THE ELECTIVE EXECUTIVE.

(To the Editor ]> Sir, —In a local in this morning's j issue of your paper, you credit Mr I G. R. Sykes, M.P., with stating, at 1 . the banquet tendered the delegates to I the Foresters' Conference, that the l day was not far distant when the Elective Executive would bo an established fact, and r.'oo stating that there were a few young members who refused to be bound by party polities, and he was pleased to state that he was one of them. How refreshing! After all those years of the Scddon and Ward admin- | istration«, during! which the party | i "dumb dogs" were (so the Reform I journals informed us-*) so much in evi- | donee, to find our representative a real, live, vertebrate Should he sue- I cumb to the hob-nailed hoots of the j Premier, or the crack of the party whip? No, never! Perish the ; thought! A perusal of Hansard re-, j veals the accuracy of his assertion. In itis pages may be found the- strenuous opposition maintained, and profound political knowledge brought to bear by the member for Masterton on the reactionary legislation introduced by tho Massey Government during the last session, including the attempt to stifle the State Fire Insurance, State Coal Mines, and tho reduction of the land tax imposed on those unfortunate individuals who own a motor car and under £30,000 worth of land. His was the voice that resounded throughout the walls of Parliament against such iniquities! But why such a dereliction of duty when his pet measure, the Elective Executive Bill, was under consideration in August last, for on that occasion our worthy after-dinner advocate of this democratic reform, failed to speak or record a vote on it. As the Bill waa only defeated by one vote, tho chances are that if Mr Sykes had voted tho casting vote of the Speaker would have materially assisted in advancing tho cause Mr Sykes assures us is so necessary a reform. —T am, etc., NUFF SED. ( (The satire of our corrosnondont is rather too nronmrne/'d. He should take something for it.. How about "Looking "Backward?"— Ed. Age.)