"A GOOD RECORD."

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19376, 31 July 1928, Page 4

"A GOOD RECORD."

REFORM GOVERNMENT. MR H. HOLLAND, M.P., AT PAPANUI. Tho claim was made by Mr H. Holland, M.P., in an address to Christchurch North electors in the Papanui Town Hall last evening, that tile' Government could lay claipi to a very good legislative record* Mr H. P. Bridge presided over a fair attendance, Mr Holland said Christchurch North had. the largest population of all the electorates in the South .Island, having had 20,070 people on the roll at the change of boundaries. He welcomed the .Papanui district to his electorate. He did not want to hold up the Government as a model Government, but it had honestly endeavoured to deal with a difficult situation, the result of the financial stringency. We were £4,200,000 to the bad as. Shown by the banks' figures, last year, but since then there had been an<enormous improvement. Since the war ended the Government had reduced taxation by £4r 000,000. It' had been said by .the Government's critics that 13,000 farmers had been driven off the land, in the last two years, but this was an absolute slander, as could be shown by the Year Book. There were cycles of depression and prosperity } and in dealing with the financial position it was only fair to take a whole peribd into account. Or the 11,000 ex-soldiers who had been placed on farms, only 400 had been forced to relinquish their holdings. It was a very creditable position, and returned soldiers ha<J no more loyal friend than the Hon. Mr -McLeod, Mifiister for Lands. The position of the Dominion had been improved by £13,000,000 in twelve months. Mr Holland said that Christchurch North had a larger number of salaried people than all the other Christchurch electorates together. He could only ask them to take his word that the in"come tax was much lower in the Dominion than ill the Australian States and Great Britain. The men on salaries from £IOOO to £ISOO had been hit perhaps a * little hard by : the recent increase, but they had previously got off very lightly in meeting the costs of the war, lii six years the Minister 'for Finance had been able to pay off £10,000,000 of war- debts. Direct or indirect taxation was the only way to meet this great .burden. The speaker agreed with the Minister that borrowing for the development _ of our re- ■ souroes was, a correct policy. It was interesting to note that, 'excluding the war debt, 77 per cent, of the National Debt was-interest bearing. .Concerning the large expenditure of the- Government on revenue producing industries and activities^Mr Holland said. j>hose who were always urging; the Government to boTrow more money were the first to criticise it for doing so.""' It would be suicidal to stop; borrowing suddenly and leave .great public works uncompleted, and borrowing must be tapered off gradually, until the payments were equal to the borrowings. lie recent New Zealand loan of £5,000,000 showed the standing of the Dominion on the London money market. New, Zealand was really in a very prosperous condition. . Dealing with Samoa, Mr_ Holland said the Leader of the Opposition was very much to blame for toe situation. All his experience of the Labour Party showed that it always hit the man with the money, yet it hadtnade a-little tin god of Mr Nelson. . The Labour Party had been hicb nnd dry without a leg to stand upon or a post to lean against. It was welcome to all the political capital it had made out of Samoa. Mr Holland said it behoved everybody to assist the unemployed. TJnfortunately unemployment was being exploited for political purposes. The payments on Government relief works were not wages, but sustenance allowances. Mr Coates had said it ' was perfectly. . safe to say that the' relief wages paid averaged more than 12s a day for married men and 9s a 'day for single men. Official figures showed that only one man in 440 was unemployed in New Zealand, and he claimed that these figures were unapproached in any other Dart of the world. "Where there were Labour Governments the position was infinitely worse. The Government had' something in Store for motorists which would give them a great deal of pleasure, lint he : was not going to disclose what it was. as the matter had been discussed onlv in canons., which was unanimous on the subject. The speaker dealt at some leneth with Government expenditure in Canterbury. He said he: was never trning to put any more questions on the Order Paper—he had very good reasons for not doing so. Members whn had been longest in Parliament had the least to sar.