LABOUR ADDRESSES.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 201, 25 August 1919, Page 9

LABOUR ADDRESSES.

THE PARTY SPLIT. AND COMING ELECTIONS. Lack of interest in its cause cannot be laid against the doors of the Labour party. The Opera House was early filled last night to hear addresses, in furtherance of the political campaign, by Messrs. R. Semple, M.P., XV. E. Parry, and F. R. Way. At 7 o'clock all the available seating accommodation in the downstairs portion of the house was taken up, and a little later people were being turned away. Mr. M. J. Savage presided. Mr. Semple alluded at the outset to Sir Joseph Ward's resignation from the National Government. Sir Joseph Ward, he said, had loft a sinking ship in an endeavour to save himself. He went on to deal with the financial position, and stated that we had borrowed £81,000,000 during the war, on which the interest was £4,000,000 per annum. The total national debt was equal roughly to about £170 per head of population. ,A family of live therefore had to meet a debt of £830. The total debt, including municipal debts, private mortgages, and the public debt, was £1127,000,000, interest on which amounted roughly to £16,000,000 per annum, which was paid by the people. This money bad been taken from the people. The statesmen borrowed the money from the people and then levied them with the interest, lt was robbery, he said, right from the foundations. The Labour party would not allow any member of the community to get rich at the expense of another. According to the Government statistics 600,000 votes were registered at the last election. Of these 150,000 possessed land. The remaining 4.10.000 of the people did not own a single incb of soil in the conntry. Alluding to I lie coal situation, tie repeated the statement published that there was ample coal. The whole thing,' |he said, wns an attempt to create indusj trial trouble for the purpose of defeating i the ends of Labour and holding a general i election in the midst of chaos and confusion, lie urged l.ahour to present a limited front and not to be side-tracked from the real issues. Only by a com j plete unity could they hope to make New I Zealand a country worth living in. | Mr. W. 11. Parry, candidate for Auckland lentrul, said there was no essential !difference between the two parties. The blundering that hud taken place was .equally due to both parties. Labour be-1 jlieved'that the break betweeen the two i was not genuine, and that neither could lose by the split. ,yn the other hand, it was held they stood to gain in that' j Labour's chances would be lessened at | the coming election. Who, he. said, were j they going to charge with the refusal to] conscript wealth as well as manhood, and I \ who with charging 7 per cent, interest on ' ! money already taken from the people:, I Could they charge one party more than another? It was ridiculous to say so. I and Sir Joseph Ward was cqitallv blame-j i worthy with Mr. .Massey. Allusion was .made to the resignation* of railwayineii I from the service because of the conditions l under which they worked, and for this, |he said, they were using the coal shortage to hide their own bungling. Mr. j Massey, he said, during the years ot political warfare between the two parties' had condemned Sir Joseph Ward for the ' amount of money he had borrowed, but! during the two years 1012-14 of Mr.l I Massey's administration he himself had 1 been a heavy borrower. He urged the people not lo be led astray by the soI called split, btit to present a" united front lat the rominrt elections. Mr. R. F. Way, candidate for Auckland | East, said both Mr. Massey's and Sir Joseph Ward's party had failed during j the crisis throush which we had passed. | I Mr. Massey had accused Sir Joseph Ward lof stealing his police, but what had Sir j Joseph War.! done but stolen some of the i. planks of the Labour platform? Was it 'not more reasonable, however, to allow jthe originators of these plnnks to carry , them out? To-day in \".-w Zealand they 1.-tood on the threshold of a new life. | They bad tried the old parties and found I'thcni wanting. Did they want a repeti'l tion of the conditions of some of the . older countries? If „ot, the situation lay - in their own hands.