ANOTHER STONEWALL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 13 October 1913, Page 4

ANOTHER STONEWALL.

The Opposition was responsible for another stonewall in the House of Representatives on Friday and Saturday. The trouble arose over the acceptance by the Government of an amendment to the Land Bill providing that the lessees of Hauraki Plains lands may acquire the freehold. The amendment wras moved by Mr T. W. Rhodes, member for the Thames, who, it will be remembered, forsook the Liberal party when the. crisis occurred twelve montlis ago. In the course of the debate," it transpired that Mr Rhddes had (himself a property of over 1000 acres in the Hauraki. The Opposition, with a. characteristic display of Pharisaism, endeavoured to show that a grave political i*npropriety would be committed if a mem- 1 ber of the House we permitted to derive a benefit under the Bill. This is quite a new development in political ethics. Does the Opposition seriously contend that every member of tho House who rotes for a measure in which he is himself directly or indirectly interested, .should be impeached? If it does, it places itself in a very awkward position, for tes members have been interested in scores, we were going to say hundreds of measures that have been placed upon tho Statute Book. The public will draw its own conclusions from the stonewall set tip by the Oppostiion. The fact that Mr Rhodes has deserted the Opposition, will probably be found at the bottom of the whole tiring.