(*1.

rrv

JULY I6, 1931

conflnued from pare 5

5e machines would af- ‘Nt ° “fiff. horses. and w forth: h“? to- would out down the ex- mat “m: and PE)’ 1°!‘ memsew“ m lemma: e of a few years. That was ‘h’ “férusnwne, but how has it work- metup? flow much more shell-lily

c they built roads than they m bu," previously? Did these gfiirines save so much? Let me tell

,. that n. tho‘ three yew in “hm, “my have been 0901M!!!‘ My have cosh-not for operation, but for repairs, nn extra. amount of $8010 do, M; 1n another year we shall h“, pnld for thesc machlllel. I103 $100,000. the 0'11"“ m" h“ mm" Mo; .,,..r this additional expendi- ture will continue. I?" 5"" 7°"- TM; was money that was borrow- “L and will have to be P!“ 55°3-

Moreover, in funding imtlicy gm- road machine work. the ordin- "y revenue of the Province is beinI robbed cf that aruount. If you i!“ “m, nloneys out of the revenue sud set it aside for sinking fund or interest, you cannot spent it as rov- cnuc. You cannot have your elh and eat it. Therefore you have that much less money every 1°" i" u" on ilie other public services o! the province. (Applause).

The Government borrowed o. cer- tain ulnount of money for gravelllng puppuges, We quite approve of the principle of gravelling; we began it in our time in s. modest way. But having borrowed that money ~10!‘ mo gruvelling, we contend that it should have been spent among the people of this rrovincc. We say that if we have gravel in trua Province, the Government should buy that gravel from our own people and use it on our own roads. That, ladies and gentlemen, will be our policy- Up to the present. time a very large part of the gravel used by this Gov- ernmeni. has been imported from another Province. A very large part has been supplied by tender to n man who no doubt has made a good deal of money out of it; and YOU are the losers. We say that that is not a good policy. It is bad enough to borrow the money, but it is a grent dcol worse to waste it after it is borrowed. (Applause).

FARMERS SHOULD BENEFIT

lo this Province we have valuable m"! deposits, equal to the mater- ial imiwrtefl by- this Government from the mainland, and hops better; gravel that nlll he dug and hauled to where it can be used by

be our policy. There is where we blame the Government, because, having borrowed the money, they have let it go completely out of the Province, and the people have not obtained any benefit except snch as they have received from the grav- eiied roads.

I might be criticised if I were not to soy something with regard to hard surfaced roads. It is very dif- ficult, at the present time, to make any statement, because the whole matter is in an experimental stage. We have had an experiment by this Government which, I must say- ancl I think you will agree with me —is not very creditable to the Gov- ernment. I believe a great deal of experimentation will yet have to take place before we can obtain for

‘ this Province hard-surfaced road:

within the means of our pockets, or that we can afford them even on ber- rewed money. The time may be very near when that kind of road will be obtained, but what have the present “Deriments shown? We find n piece of road, near Charlottetown, less than a mile in length, built last fall st a cost of over 826,000. I put it to you, can we afford to build _roads

“ throughout this Province at that

cost? I think the nnsweris very obvious. ‘

But they any now that o good deal l! that expenditure was wasted, "i" they can build other sections

h‘ m" “heflplv, because this work was

n

»- xiv-i

done under condltims of frost, when the days were short, and so forth. g Well, they took another chance, ind built another mile this sum- mer. The mils that went through the winter has not broken up yet. Blrr THE Mum mar was Burur m automor- warm-- firs. WHEN rim elm was sam- Aii Arm szvmvrmno savou- [s E. rs ALI. oaaoxno. THAT THE suns-non; Arm AN‘!- som WHO pawns OVER rr W‘ 831-1 1'1‘. (Loud applause).

pounrrrur. uxrmnnur we do not lmow what ‘o... noni-

:3? "M: we have no account of ° ‘Xllenditure incurred. Thu ‘are

\

our own people and our . own people will obtain the wages nnd remnneratl That will

building another stretch on the 5t. Peters Road and we do not know what that is costing. But don't you think it requires a great deal of faith-more faith than they have shown in many other things that aremore useful-to believe that a road of that kind, three or four inches in depth, laid without any foundation on the ordinary surface of the road, will stand up against our winters and all the weather variations that we have throughout the four seasons of the year? Per- scnally I do not think it is possi- ble. These things have to be test- edlbut is it evidence of economy for a Government to continue to build one mile after another, at heavy expense, without waiting to see whether the road will pass ens test of one severe winter? It seems to me an utter disregard of the fin- unces oi’ the Province.

srcruru ulaoun

When this Government assumed power they did away with statute labour. They condemned that sys- tem as a thing of the Dark Ages, which served no useful purpose in “Win dflyfi: it was Just. an oppor- tunity, they said, for the farmers and other people to have a day's holiday at the expense of the Gov- ernment. The people, they argued, should all pay their taxes, and the money should be expended under the direction of the Government. That went on until the by-clection in the Second District of Prince. when something very curious hap- pened. Some sort of information was passed ix) them during that el- ection campaign; because they had a change of heart, and this year they passed an Act-not to give cv- ery taxpayer an opportunity of do- ing statute labour, but to give their own friends an opportunity of wurk- ing out. their taxes on the roads. If you had driven over the roads as much as I have during the past three weeks, you would have secn how that Act is working out now- how admirably it is being exploit- ed to suit election exigencies. All the Liberals are being given an op- portunity of commuting their taxes by statute labour. We claim that every man in this Province, what- ever his politics may be, has the some right to work upon the public roads, and our policy will be to see that every man has the same op- portunlty of commuting his taxes in this manner. (Applause). .

There is such a thing as carrying politics too far, and I submit that that is onexinstance.

I quite admit that widening of the roads, in many cases, is good work. It has probably made a bet- ter and safer road: In some places, also. they have straightened the roads, and that also is proper work. But I must stop there, because when it is claimed that they have given us smooth and beautiful roads, I cannot agree for a moment. The Patriot newspaper suggested recently that I must have enjoyed my trip over the roads to the Georgetown races. Well, 1 may gay that it was not a beautiful road, land I didn't enjoy it. Anyone who calls that a beautiful road should get his glasses changed.

MACHINE WORK NOT ' ROAD BUILDING

The difficulty is that the Gov- e- ‘ is depending almost cn- tirely cn its road machines. They say they have built roads cheaper than we built thcm. but the fact of the matter is that they are not building roads at all; they are simply machining them. It is im- possible, therefore, to make any comparison between work such as was done by the Bell Government and ourselves, with the road mach- ining that this Government has undertaken. M's‘. flea, the other nlghtpspoke about our roads as costing 82,500 a mile, and said that his Government was building them for about $250 a mile. That state- ment. I may sly. is not true. It did not cost us $2,500 a mile; it cost Ill I little over $1,200 n mile, but It cost the Bell Government about $2,500 n mile. We built the same roads at fifty per cent loss cost. (Applause). But any Government that could not run s road machine over r. mile of road for will-well, I think they should resign. There is nothing in that achievement to take credit for. (Applause).

Ono of the assurances given by the Government was that with all this rosd machinery they would be able to get on the roads early in the Spring, when the work should be done. Iiavc they accomplished that? Has there been s year since they came into power when they have had the machines oporltllil even at the preeenrseuon? Last spring hrs was an excollontop portnnlt when the_ ,

Ines?" They are oberating now, of course; in fact, most of the work has been done in the latter part of June and July, when they are mak- ing a. demonstration for election purposes. They are breaking up the surface of the roads at a busy time, and what has been the result? We say that this road machining should be done in the spring of the year, making a firm, smooth road, the surface of which should be kept In conditionby dragging at the prop- er season. That is our policy with respect to read machining, and it is the one we mean to pnt into cf- fect if returned to power. (Ap- piause).

50 PER CENT MORE REVENUE

MI‘. Lea spoke of the "terrible" roads he found when he came into power in 1927. There were some spots where he nearly got lost, I believe. Well, I have found some pretty bad spots this year, also. I suppose we have all done that. It merely goes to show that none of us have attained to perfection in road building. The Premier referred also to the number of culverts put in under his regime. That, too, is a relative statement. In some in- stances he has put in more than we did; in other instances we put in more. Over and above all that, you must remember that this Gov- crnment had fifty per cent more revenue to do all that work than we had; and that makes quite a difference. (Applause).

I"'."‘ - PROHIBITION

I come now to another matter; it is ‘not an issue in this election, but it is necessary f'or me to make one or two statements with regard to it. 1 refer to Prohibition. Our attitude, as I said before, is very plain. At the last election. we put forward a platform with the best of good faith. We believed at that time that it would be for the ben- efit of the Province, and it was condemned. That is the privilege of the people of this Province, and they expressed themselves with no uncertain sound. They expressed themselves the second time, on the plebiscite. Now the matter, for the present in this Province, is settled; that the Prohibition Act is “the law and must continue to be the law until the people decide otherwise. Can I make it any plalner than that? (Applause).

Mr. Leo. has made the statement that some of our people are going about, canvassing in onelplace on Government Control. and in other places on Prohibition. I say that that statement is not correct. (Ap- plause). We have not a. record of that kind. (Applause). It is perfect- ly true, and I admit it, that we put forward the platform of Govem- ment Control at the last election; but we did it honestly, and the people having decided ' ‘ it we are prepared to stand by the decl- Bion of the people and can-y out the law of this Province. And I say no man can assert truthfully that the Conservative party ever took any other altitude with regard to the laws c-f the country which they were attempting lo govefli. find that any man who would attempt to make n. canvas of that kind ls rccreant to the party to which he belongs. (Applause).

So much for our attitude an Pro- hibition. What of their record? Did they go into this thing honestly and sincerely, with a single eye to the good government of the people and the enforcement of temperance and sobriety? What was the key-note of their campaign? It was the icttm- which Mr. Saunders wrote to his followers, advising them that the important thing-the paramount thing-was the interests of the Lib- erul Party. We may have erred. ladies and gentlemen; but we did not attempt to fool the people in that fashion! '

STILL “STANDING BY"!

So the campaign went on, and so it was woni Let. us glance at the pledges regarding prohibition which they embodied in their platform at that ‘time-that platform which Premier Lea, according to the Pat- riot newspaper, "proved" to be im- plemented until the hall rocked at Hunter River:

1 ."'I‘l1s Liberal Party will stand by and adhere to the Prohibition Law with such u dments as may be deemed necessary to make its administration more work- able." '

And they are still “standing by"! (Laughter) They stood by and sow the law violated; they stood by and ssw_ more liquor brought Into this nce in the last four years than wdg ever s_e_t:_n or hesrd- of since file l 5011' M‘ Vi} hi

rm: cHARLoTri-finwlv GUARDIAN

TUB sIoT/ REA DJUS TMEN T" 1s PRESSING ELECTION ISSUE 5A YSCONSER v.4 TIVE LEAD ER

ed the poor man to be taken and fined and committed to jail while the big man, the party heeler who was making hundreds and thous- ands of dollars out of the traffic, went unmolested.‘ That was the way they “stood by”; that is the way they enforced the Prohibition law during the past four years- And these are the men who say that we have not been honest and ' re! (Prolonged applause).

Another of their pledges was to make the law "more workable." It is the easiest thing in the world to pass amendments. You can pass enough law amendments to fill this buildin with volumes; but what would be the good of the amend- ments if you did not-enforce them? (Applause).

They passed one amendment to the effect that if a tenant sold ii- quor the landlord would be penal- ized. Did you ever hear of that be- ing enforced? I could take instance after instance of amendments to the Act, and show you that they never attempted to enforce one of them. They were simply making gestures to the people, to the Tem- perance Alliance and other bodies who areseeklng temperance in this Province. in order to placate them and keep them quiet. ‘that is why those amendments were passed, and the result speaks for itself. Have they succeeded in any way in m. curing a better enforcement of the law‘! What have they done to sup- press the liquor traffic? That is the question, and it is a question which requires no answer by any person with a. knowledge of the conditions existing today. (Loud applause).

MORE BROKEN PLEDGES

Another pledge was "the appoint- ment of three Prohibition Prose- cutors for each County." Also "co- operation with the Federal auth- orities for the enforcement of the Customs and Inland Revenue Acts to prevent smuggling of liquor and illicit stills." ‘

Do you remember the aign assurance about the Mounted Po- lice? (Loud laughter). Do you re- member how this Province was to be over-run with them? I saw one. He was crossing on the car ferry steamer on the eveningi of the el- ection. But he disappeared; I don't know whether there were any oth- ers with him, but I never saw or heard of one in this Province since.

Do you know of any “co-opera- tion" they .. have ever attempted with the Federal Government in or- der io enforce the Prohibition Law? I never heard of it. It is quite true that the Federal officers are oper- ating; they are operating because they are engaged t0 do so by the Federal Government. But what happens? A Prohibition officer fol- lows them about, and when they catch a mun and fine him, the Pro- hibition offlcer catches him and fines him too.‘ That is their "co-op- eration." (Laughter). It is a pretty one-sided “co-operatlon," isn't it? The Federal man does the work, and the local ‘officer gets the sec- ond fine out of the same party-

THREE TN ONE!

In place of the appointment of three Magistrates having exclusive jurisdiction to enforce the Prohibi- tion Act, we have one. The Three- ln-One! (Laughter).

Another pledge was “reduction in the sale price of liquors for medl- cinai purposes." I do not know whether they have implemented that or not. I have never had occa- sion to buy one. (Laughter).

Those were their promises, and as I said, you can see the results. You know of the riots that have taken place in the jail; you know the quantity of liquor that has been smuggled into this Province; you know of the violations of the law. You know also of‘ the violations of the Motor vehicle laws. All these things have increased ten fold and a thousand fold in the last four years-flourishing under this Gov- ernment that gained power on their solemn pledge to you that they would enforce the Prohibition Law.

Do you think that they are en- titled now to further of your con- fidence? To be returned again? Do you think they are the people who should be entrusted by you with the ‘orcement of the laws of this Province?

A STRAIGIITFORWARD Auswan

I am not going to say any more about that; I think I have said enough. I have a letter here that I received from the secretary of a temperance organization in the Province, the Prince Edward Is- land Temperance Federation. I have been asked to answer it. and I am going to answer it here. in the presence of you all. I mo" r“

‘(that ' n delegation from r’

er temperance organization wait- ed upon me some time ago, and I gave my answer then. I intimated the policy of the Conservative par- ty; it was published in the news- papers and you, no doubt. have lead it. Here are the questions which I am asked by the Temper- ance Federation:

We respectfully ask the leader of each Party, in his official cap- acity. to .be good enough to ans- wer the following question:

“is it the policy of yourself and of the party which you have the honour of leading. that you ac- cept the votes of 1927 and 1929 as the verdict of the people of our Province on the Prohibition ques- tion, and if returned to power, will you and your party do your utmost to carry out the will of the people so expressed, by main- taining, strengthening where ne- cessary, and vigorously enforcing the Prohibition Act?

I may say, in brief, that l’ answer both of those questions in the af- firmative. (Applause),

We were accused of legisiatlng for office. Mr. Lea has gone so far as t0 say that that is all we did- You would imagine that a. gentle- man who would makc such a sweep- ing charge as that would be very careful of his own skirts-that he would avoid falling into that trap himself! Yet this is the gentleman who passed, this year, what Is known as the Ticket of Leave Act, the object. oi’ which was to enable the Government to release prohibi- tion offcndcrs from jail before their time was served. I hear that the Act is being very well “patronized? (Laughter). Things of that kind speak for themselves. It is not nc- cessary for any one to offer much comment upon them.

PROVINCIAL POLICE

We had some measure of en- forcement for a time, when the Prohibition Commission had control of the matter. Mr. Lea took par- ticular care to emphasize that lost year, in the by-election. when he said that if there was any blame to be attached to anybody, it was the Prohibition Commission; they were the responsible people. Ap- parently they are not the people now; the matter now is in the hands of the Provincial Police.

I do not object to a. Provincial Police force. I think perhaps it is a good institution, and I know they have it in other provinces. But it can be carried to excess. lIcrc they have a staff costing from $30,000 to $40,000 a year. You see them about, in great numbers, and they are dressed very fine, wearing mag- nificent uniforms; better than the soldiers’, perhaps better than the officers’ uniforms. And it is allot the expense o-i’ you people. Thai would be all right if it were neces- sary, but unfortunately this or- ganization has been used for pur- poses of party politics. They have appointed men who are simply par- ty heciers and who have no qual- fications whatever, and I say when they are paying men of that stripe as policemen they are throwing away your money and they are holdingup this Province ln ridicule to the whole of Canada. (Applause).