NEW SUBURBS SEAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 174, 25 July 1928, Page 8

NEW SUBURBS SEAT.

LABOUR PARTY'S CAMPAIGN. ADDRESS AT GLEN EDEN. The Glen Eden Labour party held a meeting in the public hall, Glen Eden, last evening, the principal speaker being Mr. W. T. Anderton, of Auckland, the Labour candidate for the new city electorate of Eden, in assistance of the campaign on behalf of Mr. H. G. R. Mason, M.P., who will contest the new Auckland Suburbs seat. The attendance was very poor on account of the wet weather prevailing at the time appointed for the meeting. Mr. Anderton was acconw panied by Mr. E. T. B. Allen, the organiser for the Labour party's national campaign fund, and also by Mrs. Macky, of Auckland. In the course of his address on "Unemployment," Mr. Anderton emphasised the failure of Mr. Coates and his Government to deal with the problem and the prevailing distress, stating that the only remedy the Government had been able to provide was 9/ per day for single men and 12/ per day for married men, which often was more apparent than real, as, on account of weather and other causes of stoppage of work, the recipients were sometimes left in debt to the storekeeper. He stated that since 1912 the Reform party had only considered the vested interests of this country and not the interests of the workers. Dealing with relief works, Mr. Anderton stated that most of these were all of an unproductive nature. He eulogised the work of Mr. H. G. R. Mason, M.P., whom he stated was now recognised as one of the smartest men on the floor of the House, and asserted that Mr. Mason had nothing to fear from the candidature of Sir James Gunson. Concluding his address with reference to the National Party, he advised the workers to realise that whether National or Reform, both these parties stood for vested interests and not the interests of the workers. Mr. Allen then addressed the meeting, comparing the position of the workers in New Zealand to-dav with a few years ago in regard to the matter ot unemployment, which, along with some Reform members, he believed would now be a permanent feature in local industrial life, subject, of course to minor fluctuations. In 1927 the Government figures for unemplovment were given as 2698, whereas the "union fibres alone showed the number of unionists unemployed as 5325. In reference to the position of the -SwS th + U H I f bour Part y> he considered that the farmer who was reallv a farmer and in consequence a worker had more m common with the \va~eearner than with the explorer. - Irs. Macky spoke a few words on the necessity of organising the Labour omens vote throughout the electorate and promised assistance in this direction during the coining campaign.