CHURCH-LIKE CALM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 271, 15 November 1935, Page 10

CHURCH-LIKE CALM.

NO INTERJECTIONS.

POLICY OF THE LIBERALS.

MB. GTJINIVEN'S CANDIDATTJRE.

Speakers in election campaigns have claimed records of different sorts. No candidate has a greater claim to one than Mr. J. Guineven, Liberal candidate for Waitcmata, as a result of an address at Northcote last evening. The candidate spoke for more than an hour and not an interjection broke the church-like calm. Only three impromptu questions came before question time was due. The meeting was a model of decorum; and it had an old wo:ld air, for the names most often heard tvere those of mighty men of a different generation—Atkinson, Ballance, Seddon and MacKenzie. Mr. R. Martin, Mayor of Northcote, presided. Mr. Guiniven led his audience, which was fairly large considering that there was another candidate giving an address in the borough, over a wide field of policy. At the outset, he explained that the Liberal party thought there would be an early dissolution of the new Parliament and then the revivified party would come out from one end of New Zealand to the other. The Harbour Bridge. Though the speaker eschewed personalities, he told one questioner that he (Mr. Guiniven) must take issue with Mr. A. Harris, M.P., concerning the harbour bridge. The questioner said that Mr. Harris had stated from the public platiorm that the building of the harbour bridge was going to begin about Eatter. "Anything you have heard does not warrant Mr. Harris' statement," said Mr. Guiniven. He spoke about "Mr. Harris and his piffle." Some arrangement would have to be come to, the speaker said, to amend the charter or to take it out of the hands of the company. The company had given no help. It would be a good thing if the Government took the project up, but it seemed to him that the local bodies would have to make common cause with the Government and make some sacrifice. Referring to taxation, Mr. Guiniven said that the burden lay too heavily on the class that could ill afford it —the poor. Of the 1,500,000 people in New Zealand 1,250,000 might be classed as "poor." Yet that number paid £16,000,000 in taxes and the quarter of a million a little under £0,000,000.

For a remedy for unemployment, Mr. Guiniven had three suggestions, which had either a direct or an indirect bearing on the problem. They were land settlement, a greater population and secondary industries. In Mr. Seddon's time, he said, the sum of £14,000,000 was spent on buying land, and £11,000,000 had been repaid, besides an annual revenue of £543/00. "Any Government, I don't care which it is, will have to face the question of land settlement," the speaker said, "and Mr. MacKenzie's policy should be continued." As for secondary industries, he said that a good argument for them was to pay a visit to any school and see the numbers of children about to leave and looking for positions, and to ask where work was going to be found for them. Mr. Guiniven mentioned two specific avenues in which he considered secondary industries' could b6 ■ exploited, though he said lie could spend half an hour reading a list to which the ,same argument would apply. The two he cited were wool and iron and steel. Wool worth £0700 when it left the station had amounted to £74,900 by the time it reached the consumer. That gave some idea of what would be spent in wages if that opportunity were taken up. In Nelson there were vast deposits of iron, he said. They also might be utilised. The population he considered would have to be increased. New Zealand, he said, instead of having perhaps 1,500,000 people could "house" 20,000,000. Exchange And Banking. Mr. Guiniven was against the raising of the exchange rate to 25 per cent. It was gravely to be doubted whether the farmer benefited. New Zealand was a debtor country and not a creditoi country. "One thing I would do would be to abolish the Central Bank," Mr. Guiniven affirmed. It was nothing more than a machine for creating money and placing the interest burden on the people. As an alternative the Liberal party, he said, had decided that the Bank of New Zealand should be taken over. In the crisis of the early nineties the bank should have been made a State bank, but Mr. Seddon had decided against that. "Mr. Seddon was not an educated man," added the speaker naively. Had that been done there would have been no overseas debt. The Bank of New Zealand was a moneymaking concern, with profitable agencies all over the world. The Reserve Bank was a "wash-out." Abolish Relief Work. "Relief work under the control of local bodies should be abolished," he added, in advocating a vigorous policy of public works at standard wages. In a young country there was plenty to be done. Instead of sending men into the country to camp and breaking up homes the men would have work relatively close to their homes. "None of this sustenance stigma," he said. "We want either work or straight-out unemployment insurance." Speaking generally, Mr. Guiniven said he stood for doing everything to alleviate the lot of the working' man, who was in danger of starving in the midst of plenty. Other points the candidate touched on were a more definite and sustained tourist policy; a change in land tenure to leasehold instead of freehold; a change in the education system so that five-year-old children would be a Imitted to schools; and the abolition of the country quota. Mr. Guiniven admitted that the country had spent money on the tourist trade; but contended that it had misspent that money. He advocated a policeon lines similar to that of Canada, where the revenue of the country had been enormously increased. A questioner asked Mr. Guiniven how he was going to make his weight felt in the House, when he had only a single vote. The question inferred that° a party system was necessary to secure the passing of measures. Mr. Guiniven said that his vote was as good as any other man's and that after all a party bloc vote was only that of a number of individuals In any case it was time that the country ceased to vote for a party name and thought more of the individual asking for the vote. After amplifvina the points raised in the questions, Mr. Guiniven, was accorded a vote of thanks without dissent.