BEFORE THE BATTLE

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 273, 14 November 1908, Page 5

BEFORE THE BATTLE

(BY TELEGRAPH—PEESS ASSOCIATION.)

"LEST WE FORGET."

THE PRIME MINISTER'S MANIFESTO

WELLINGTON, Friday. The Prime Minister has Issued the following manifesto:— "To the People of the Dominion of New Zealand: Fellow Citizens, —On Tuesday next you will be asked to decide between progress and reaction, between headway and retrogression, between a steady march breast forward and a spiritless marking time, between faith in your country and distrust, between a policy of firm courage and one of timid hesitation, between a policy of opportunity for all and one of favour to a class; in fine, between progressive Liberalism and old-time Conservatism. The past is soon forgotten, although it is our only faith guide to the future. We are all apt to forget the dark days left behind us. Eighteen years ago, the splendid spirit of John Ballance became the captain of this country's destination, and, with a Cabinet of whom the majority are now at rest, boldly sailed away from the straits, the shallows, and the largely land-locked waters or Conservatism into the free ocean of a genuinely patriotic Liberalism.

THE OLD ORDER. "We are apt to forget what we then left behind us. We turned our backs upon the hard and narrow policeman policy of the preceding Government that would do no more for its people than keep them in order by pains and penalties, and we declared that the State thenceforward must have a larger heart and kindlier hand to promote the well-being of all those men and women anxious to better themselves, but who were under the then existing conditions deprived of the opportunity. We left behind us in 1891 a property tax which had allowed some of the largest incomes to go scot free —a tax entirely ungraduatod and one which fell with no heavier pressure upon gigantic landed estates than upon the savings of the fanner and the wage-earners. We turned our back on land monopoly, then unrestricted and rampant, as witness the fact that 584 owners held no less an area than 10,400,000 acres—or, illustrated another way, one-eightieth of the country. Land-owners having over five acres each held two-fifths in value of the whole of the rural land of New Zealand. We left at the same juncture the time when the cities were crowded with unemployed, when Government relief works were necessary in which married workers received the conservative rate of 3/6 and single workers 2/6 per day, and when the land upon which many of them might have then, and have since, been settled, lay in the relentless grasp of the Conservative squatter. We left a day when capital, controlled by combination among banks and other large lending institutions, was available to small farmers and struggling settlers only at rates and charges for interest often exceeding 100 per cent per annum with law costs and procuration fees.

THE RECORD OF THE PAST. "We turned from the old policy which permitted capital to treat rlabpur like a dead commodity, and buy it a t the cheapest price, to which, by competition, it could be forced down, and we declared that thenceforth it was a chief concern of the State that no work of man or woman should be taken by any employer for a wage which starved the worker and shocked our sense of humanity and justice. We effected a change that placed tbe employer and manufacturer upon such a basis that his unscrupulous fellowcompetitor could not under-sell him by unfair competition, begotten of sweating and other methods at the expense of his employees. Thereby, we soon left behind us the sweating evil, then rearing its abominable head throughout our country and producing such miserable conditions and sufferings as arc revealed in the evidence taken by the Sweating Commission of 1890. These, remember, were only some of the conditions of monopoly, misery, and oppression from which Messrs. Balance, Seddon, .and his successors have enabled the masses of New Zealand to escape, and with what success, and by what measures the record of this country's progress and our statute book for the last 18 years is the best evidence.

OPPOSITION ANTAGONISM. "Do the small settlers throughout New Zealand, and the workers in our towns forget the obstruction, the bit terness, the derision which Messrs. Ballance, Seddon, McKcnzie, Reeves, and myself encountered in getting our reforms upon the statute book—and from whom? From the men who, as we dealt blow after blow at privilege and monopoly, shouted in chorus that we were "The seven devils of Socialism"—shouted it in much the same key as our oppencnts are shouting "Socialism" to-day. And who were these men! For the most part, the very people who are now asking you to dismiss us, and put them in our place. Do the electors of New Zealand forget that it was those who now chiefly constitute the Opposition party, who-fiercely opposed each one of our great Liberal measures, which sought to check monopoly in land and capital, and effectively pro tect the farmer and the worker? True types of the reactionary they! l'*or did they not resist and denounce at every place, and on all occasions, the Land for Settlement Act, the Advances to Settlers Act, the graduated land ' tax, the Industrial and Conciliation Act. the Old Age Pensions Act, the land and income tax, and the other great measures of progressive Liberalism? Do the electors of New Zealand forget the law that gave our closer settlement policy its first great strides? Who opposed the vital principal of that Act —the compulsory power of purchase? Who took sides with the land monopolist, and violently attacked and opposed that principle? Where would be the widespread settlement throughout New Zealand to-day if the Opposition had succeeded? Who opposed the Advances to Settlers Act, and called it State pawnbroking? Who tried to kill the bill outright, and, failing that, wanted to Taisc from four and a half to five and a half per cent, the rate of interest to be exacted from the settler? Who denounced the Government proposal to make advances to two-thirds of the value of the security, and demanded that it should be reduced to 50 per cent? The answer is tbe then members of the present Opposition, many of them its members now. Our opponents have consistently resisted the progressive measures we have passed since the beginning of 1898 to assist settlement, to help farmers, to give better conditions to workers, and an old age pension to all who need it, denouncing all as Fa bian Club Socialism and thereby revealing their steady antagonism to the wise, liberal policy framed for the benefit of the many, and not in the interests of the few. With some men, their unreasoning antagonism to others is in itself sufficient to convince them that those they dislike must come to a bad end. The antagonism of the Opposition towards us has now largely become a blind prejudice which thinks it can justify itself by doleful cries of "Woe, woe unto us, New Zealand is going to destruction. Behold our tears! The day of.disaster is at hand! Jehu, the son of Nimshi, baa the reins, and he driveth us all furiously to financial perdition." And so, instead of a policy, our Opposition friends have been for some time compiling a new Book of Lamentations.

FOOLISH AND UNPATRIOTIC. "This is worse than silly—it is unpatriotic. We in New Zealand can appraise these cries at their true worth, and the Government suffers nothing from them. Unfortunately, our country suffers much, for they are repeated in London, and, by creating there a suspicion as to our financial soundness, tend to injure the credit and reputation of New Zealand Itself, and increase the price our people as a whole have to pay for the money they require. Party tactics are never fair which recklesily damage the reputation of one's country in the hope that they may embarrass an, opposing party. These predictions of financial ruin have been so often falsified, year after year, by our increasing progress and our rising revenues, that one wonders why these prophets of woe are not abashed. But not they! PROSPECT NEVER BRIGHTER. Our financial position was never sounder, our prospects never brighter than to-day, when in prominent Opposition quarters this lamentation is most pronounced. Rest assured that if you give us a continuance of your confidence, the splendid prosperity of this country is not going to be stupidly checked by running dead slow all the Government agencies of progress, like the Advances to Settlers, Land for Settlement, and Advances to Local Bodies, the pushing on of our railways, making provision for necessary roads and back-block development—this is what the Opposition must mean to do if in power, for they can only substantially reduce our public expenditure by starving the administration of our measures of . progress and our public service. This is a rich young country. Our people have pluck and enterprise, and only a craven fear of our own great future would counsel the 'dead slow security of pace' so dear to our opponents, judging by their public utterances. Conservatism has had its day in this country. We know what it did; we know what it sought to do; we know what it would do again if it could. Its past is ever before it, and its future behind it.

PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM. "And now for a closing word to you, my fellow citizens of New Zealand. Progressive Liberalism is based upon the principle that the State should have a larger heart and kindlier hand for its people than the 'policeman policy' of the past, that it should have a parental solicitude for the start and progress of every willing man and woman, however poor, giving in all possible ways to each a fair chance and opportunity of getting on in the world. This spirit of progressive Liberalism gave you each of the Land Acts since 1890; it gave you the Land for Settlements Acts, under which many thousands of men with their wives and families, numbering altogether over one hundred thousand people, have been settled upon farms in happiness and comfort; it gave you the Workers' Hemes Act, and tbe Advances to Settlers and Workers' Acts, under which.the State has advanced many millions without less to the permanent advantage of the small farmers and-workers; it gave you tbe various Acts to assist the fanning, dairying, aud mining industries; it gave remission of rents other concessions and grants to *****' , in times

of stress; it passed labour laws to secure fair wages,fair conditions, and protection against oppression through its Labour Department; it has, since the beginning of 1898, found work for 43,000 workers, with 46,000 souls dependent on them; it has spent millions in giving outpost settlers, with their wives and families, access and communication by road, railway, telegraph, and telephone; and, instead.of standing by with folded hands, Jetting struggling men and women go down to failure unaided, it has increased every agency by which capital, markets, transport, and instruction could be secured for them.

THE CHILDREN OF THE STATE. "But this is not the only way in which the larger heart and kindlier hand of progressive Liberalism has been shown. It has recognised and increasingly felt that all our people, high and low, rich . and. poor, are the Children of the State, and that some of that regard and human kindness found within the family circle should mark its treatment of the weak, the injured, and the aged. It has sought by its Infant Life Protection Act to give the children of the poor a better chance of health and life;'it has I 'sought to aid poor mothers in their trying hours; it has. given every worker the most generous provision in the world for his maintenance -when disabled by accident; it has secured the aged against want during the closing years of life by the largest pension given free by any State. In. these, and in. all directions, it has shown the spirit of genuine humanitarianism, and not leas has it shown the spirit of justice and fair play. ADJUSTING THE BURDENS "It has clung to the principle of adjusting the burden to the back. It abolished the old unjust property tax-, thereby relieving taxation in. one swoop from 8000 farmers, on whom it pressed heavily and unfairly, and imposing it where there was abundant ability to bear it. Thus it has provided a graduated land tax, while abolishing the Customs duties upon aU necessary articles of diet used by the masses of the people. It has set the example of a fair wage to private employers by increasing, to the point of comfort, the salaries of all its employees, whether Civil servants, railway employees, school teachers, or ordinary workers, and providing them with a generous provident fund to maintain them in their old age. THE FUTURE UNDER LIBERAL GOVERNMENT. "What progressive Liberalism has done it will, if encouraged by your confidence, continue to do with new energy and in new directions. By taking advantage of the land finance system it will enable willing settlers to obtain freehold farms of limited areas by purchase from private owners, tbe State guaranteeing the whole of the purchase money. It will assist them with capital, and with all the agencies of the Agricultural Department. It will provide a universal annuity system based upon sound financial lines, which, for a small payment, will give every worker, with wife and children dependent on him, adequate protection against the rainy day of sickness. It will, in proper cases, further help the workers' wives with medical aid and skilled nursing in maternity cases. It will push on with the settlement of the surplus native lands now being surveyed for European settlement. It will continue to acquire large estates and cut them up in limited areas to enable men and women and their families to settle on them. These things it will do, while still administering every other measure on the Statate Books for the promotion of progress and the advancement of every class of the community. The vital importance to all classes in the Dominiou of having our country's business prosecuted so as to assist the maintenance of the prosperity it has enjoyed, must be self-evident, and a strong and courageous Government is no unimportant factor in helping this on. I feel that the active employment of our people, and the opening up of additional avenues for work and investment, and the extension of our commercial boundaries, is a goal that is worthy of our best efforts. It is to be regretted that, while the Government has steadfastly pursued this policy there have been' of late so many sinister efforts made to damage the country's financial fabric. I would again repeat for your assurance that all our public financial engagements have been provided for for many months ahead, and the. moneys required to"" carry on our public works have been arranged for on the most satisfactory terms. What we require is faith in ourselves and our country, and, having this, 1 am certain that our future is bright with hope. This" but still further expresses the policy of the larger heart and kindlier hand of Progressive Liberalism. And, while it will mean increased work and increased anxiety for my Government, and demand all the care, foresight,' and business ability we possess, it will bring the ample reward of your approval, and of our seeing an ever increasing number of our people relieved in the hour of distress, protected against want, and set upon a path whereon, with their own stout hearts and willing hands, they may rise to permanent comfort and general well-being. For these reasons I ask, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, a continuance of your confidence in recognition of our genuine efforts and desire to promote the welfare of all classes in the Dominion, and.to help our country onwards in the path of progress, prosperity, and peace. "(Signed) J. G. WARD."