DANGER SEEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 149, 25 June 1936, Page 10

DANGER SEEN.

GOVERNMENT POLICY. "FRANKLY SOCIALISTIC." MR. POLSON'S CRITICISM. 1 (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, Wednesday. Politics were the feature of the programme at tho evening session of the annual conference of the Otago Provincial Council of tho Farmers' Unioft tonight when the Dominion president, Mr. W. J. Poison, M. P., reviewed and criticised mercilessly the legislative course that the Labour Government was steering. The speaker said he knew that his preoccupation with politics in his capacity as Dominion president was the subject of a good deal of strong feeling, but notwithstanding this he was determined to discuss politics and the political future with them.

The programme of the Labour Government was frankly socialistic, he said. Gradualness had been abandoned for a substantial instalment of Socialism in tlio shortest possible time. Co-opera-tion had been conspicuous by its absence.

There was a lot of heroic sentiment, ho said, about Labour's catch cries about nobler tilings than £ s. d. They did exist, of course, but it was impossible in these days for them to divorce themselves from such a sordid thing as money. New Zealand could not hope to "ring fence" itself as long as a greater proportion of its primary produce was sold overseas on a competitive market to men who would not pay a penny more than it was worth. So it did not matter what they wanted to do Labour must think and act in terms of £ 8. d. Mr. Poison went on to deal with the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and its effect of pitting class against class in a welter of compulsory unionism. The amended law had been forced on to tho country in spite of the existence of a considerable body of Labour opinion that was opposed to any change of tho voluntary arbitration system brought in by tho last Government. He visualised the domination of industry by trade union officials in Wellington who could secure a stranglehold on development and progress. It could not fail to be disastrous for the farmers. "Basic Wage Too High." Referring to the basic wage, Mr. Polson said it was fixed too high. He was opposed to low wages, but a basic wage of about £4 5/ or £4 10/ was too much. Employers could not ail'ord it and it meant that a great many young people were doomed to Seinple's pick and shovel brigade. The. Transport Licensing Act created a dictator in actual fact, said Air. Polson. Robert Semple was just as much a dictator as Hitler himself. The Minister could do what he liked and no Supreme Court or the Privy Council itself could say him "nay." The Reserve Bank Amendment Act was one for which many people had a lot of sympathy as they thought it was only right that the Government should control a State bank, but the Reserve Bank was not a State bank. It was under tho control of the Minister of Finance and not a board. The Minister could draw what he liked from the bank and could also discriminate in the issue of credit. Passing on to the proposals to control dairy prices, Mr. Poison said the Prime Minister in a speech in the North Island had announced that the speaker's assertion that the Government intended to take charge of the marketing of meat and' wool was mere humbug. Mr. Poison pointed out that pamphlets issued by Loth the Prime Minister and Mr.'Nash gave a pledge to pay guaranteed prices for all butter, cliecse and meat if the Labour party was returned to power. Ho believed that the reason why the Government had not proceeded further along the very hazardous path of guaranteed prices on which it had embarked was the determined attack on the whole thing by the Opposition.