"SAFETY FIRST."

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 2 November 1925, Page 8

"SAFETY FIRST."

BUT NOTHING TOR WORKERS. Referring to the Reform poster, "Safety First," at the Strand Theatre last evening, Mr. Way, Labour candidate for Parnell, protested against the flag of the Empire being used on the poster by the people who were attacking the homes of the people. He claimed that, though he was ("just quietly") having rather a hard fight for Parnell as a result of putting intelligence to the electors of Parnell it was not a question of who was going to win, but by what majority Labour was going to win. Not one single Act passed by the Reform Government in 14 years had any tendency to improve the lot of those who toiled. On the other hand, Civil servants had been deprived of part of their wages, and the Customs duties, largely obtained from food nnd clothing, had been largely increased, whilst already rich landlords had been further enriched. In reply to the slander that Labour was going to take away the homes of the worker, said Mr. Way, Labour was going to take the homes where overcrowding existed, and &ive to those people homes of their own, which could not be taken by tbe mortgage power. Mortgage holders had a-half of the capital value of the land in New Zealand, and Labour was goin<r to take the workers' homes out of the clutches of Reform's friends, and it would lend money to the man who wanted a home at a £>asonable rate of interest. Comparing the financial standing of Queensland under a Labour Government, Mr. Way said that Queensland loans had been oversubscribed on the London market, though the moneylenders were no friends of Labour. But Mr. Coates had to go to the local market in New Zealand, because he could not get the money in London.