THE "FINANCIAL OCTOPUS."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 260, 2 November 1928, Page 10

THE "FINANCIAL OCTOPUS."

MR. BARTRAM AT GREY LYXX.

"If we win this election," declared Mr. F. N. Bartram, Labour candidate for Grey Lynn, at his meeting in the Westniere estate last evening, "we shall grapple with financial problems, and do our utmost to release New Zealand from the financial octopus which threatens it. Also we shall take good care that no additional burden, as suggested by Sir Joseph Ward, shall be put upon the country. The scheme of further borrowings is unsound from its inception; it is essentially unsound."

Mr. Bartram outlined the Labour policy which, he said, stood for a sound and fair land policy, the introduction of an unemployment insurance scheme on similar lines to that which was operating so efficiently in Great Britain and in Queensland, extending pension benefits and the inauguration of a reciprocal scheme for old age pensions so that those who moved from one part of the country to another should not be disqualified from benefit. The Endowment of Families Act and the scheme of pensions for the blind were results of the work of the Labour party. The unemployment insurance scheme did not claim to be a solution of the unemployment problem, but it did assure that when a worker fell out of employment the burden should not fall so heavily on the storekeeper and the tradesman who had trusted him.

"We intend to push forward with the necessary work of tunnel construction under the city," said Mr. Bartram. "I have never suggested, as my opponents have insinuated, "that this is another solution for the unemployment difficulty but we do insist that it is a work which is long overdue. It is one of the many necessary schemes which have been held up for years by the dilatorinese of the Reform Government."

The meeting, over which Councillor Phelan presided, passed the customary vote of thanks and confidence.