LABOUR POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 152, 30 June 1939, Page 9

LABOUR POLICY.

ALLEGED BETRAYAL.

LEFT WING ATTITUDE. "IXE liETTER" REFERENCES. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON', this day. What has come to be known as the Lee letter was again mentioned in the House of Representatives yesterday. It was during the debate on the Imprest Supply Bill, Mr. \V. A. Bodkin (Nat., Central Otago) making reference to the document, lie was checked by Mr. Speaker, who said there was a question on the Order Paper concerning what was described as the "Lee letter," and when the question was before the House there would be opportunity for discussing it. By no stretch of imagination could the letter be described as an act of administration on the part of the Government. The debate on the bill must bfe confined to consideration of Government policy or administration. Mr. Bodkin said he would confine himself to references of criticism of Government policy by promipent members of the Government and to criticism that took place at the Labour Conference. A Government Member: Who was your pimp? "We know that a majority of the present Government have accused Cabinet of betrayal of the Labour policy, and have pointed out to their own party and the country that they have brought about the greatest crisis New Zealand has ever known," declared Mr. Bodkin. Government Members: Oh! Mr. Bodkin: There are interjections from the right wing. Why don't you ask the left wing! The acting-Leader of the House (Mr. P. Eraser) would suggest that the Government has the confidence of the country, while the position is that it has not tiie confidence of its own party. The Minister of Finance is now endeavouring to retrieve his position. The left wing would only make confusion more confounded, and I sayfrankly that it was a good thing the Prime Minister, although he was beaten if it came to a vote, put his back to the wall and said, "If you pass this it is a vote of no-confidence in the Government." "For that reason," continued Mr. Bodkin, "100 delegates refrained at the labour Conference from voting because they were not prepared to plunge the country into an election. Yet the Minister says that the Labour party is endeavouring to carry out the policy it placed before the electors of New Zealand." For years the Labour Government had claimed that it would never borrow oversea*, but now they had the Minister of Finance overseas begging for money as it had never been hegged for before by New Zealand, said Mr. Bodkin. Mr. Fraser: That is not correct. Mr. Bodkin: He has gone on to a bad market, and the Minister knows it. He has allowed all overseas funds to disappear, and has succeeded in so destroying the credit of New Zealand that its bonds to-day are being sold in the open market for less than ever before in the history of the country.