MESSAGE TO THE ELECTORS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19466, 13 November 1928, Page 10

MESSAGE TO THE ELECTORS.

REFORM'S RECORD OF THREE YEARS. PROGRAMME FOR FUTURE. (PEESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, November 12. The Prime Minister (Mr Coates) issues tlie following message to the electors:— "Two questions only have to be answered by the electors of New Zealand on Wednesday and two Parties seriously to be considered. The electors have to say whether they desiro the return of the Government which has been a Government of the people for the peo:le, a Government which has a record of definite achievements for national welfare and a clearly defined programme for future development, or whether they will commit the affairs of the country into the hands of the Labour-Socialist

group. "My faith in the people of New Zealand, the receptions which have been accorded to me personally and my statement of the Government case, and the reports I have roceived from all electorates, lead me to only one conclusion — that the electors who have studied the political situation are in a majority, and that they will say to the Government, 'Carry on.' "During the past month it has been my good fortune to have visited many electorates throughout the Dominion. It has been very gratifying to me to find that my predictions concerning the situation have been confirmed, and that our critics are stronger vocally than thoy are in numbers. I have found that the great mass of the people have recognised the fact that the Government has been tested in a period of very great difficulty, created wholly by world-wide economic depression and low prices, now happily past, for our produce in external markets, and that it has performed its tasks with credit to itself and to our land. The people have recognised that the administration has always been fair to all sections of the community —to producer and consumer, to worker and employer. They have also recognised that the Government has carried on with a policy which haß promoted the co-operation of all our people in the general interest. Co-operation was the basis of our policy during the past three years; it is the basis of our policy for the future. "A month ago I set out in a manifesto a brief statement of the Government's achievements, and an outline of its programme. Our opponents have had a month in which to examine it but, bombarded as it has been from all sides and angles, the record stands unshaken. For argument, they have produced vague assertions, unproved and unsustainable, words which compare very poorly with the hard commonsense facts on which the Government has relied. "In one of the most difficult economic periods New Zealand has ever experienced, the Government, with no other desire than to act 'in the best interests of the whole country, has consolidated and promoted the primary industry of the Dominion in the following directions:— Nearly £IO.OOO 000 advanced to settlers in the last three years. Rural credits (long term advances). Rural intermediate credits. Reduction in railway freights for the encouragement of production. Guaranteed assistance to fruitgrowers (mostly small men). Stabilised prices for wheatgrowers. Assistance to the pork industry (a great benefit to small fanners). Assistance tp the poultry industry. Establishment of the Massey Agricultural College. Latest scientific research. Herd testing. "Mav I set out again a few of the essential points in the Government's programme: Safe finance. No extravagant borrowing. Relief in taxation. ■ Progressive Public Works development. Improved highways and country roads. Improved railway services. Co-operation of railway and motor interests, especially heavy traffic, and rectifying economic disabilities. Extension of hydro-electrio schemes. A sound policy of land settlement based on existing legislation by assistance to part time farmers near towns, ta small holders in rural districts, to men who desire to band together in the purchase-of holdings suitable for subdivision, by opening up pumice and other unoccupied lands —all tending to increase our exports and consequently our national wealth. Assistance to primary industry by increased financial facilities. The expediting of applications now in the hands of the Advances Department from settlers and workers. Easing the Wden pf local rates. Encouragement of secondary industries. Public health extension. Modern vocational education. ' Assistance to those of our returned soldiers who are only now revealing the effects of war strain. Remedial action on analysed causes of unemployment. Promotion of industrial peace and .social welfare. Equal opportunity for all our citizens.

These are no fanciful promises. The Ixovernment cannot promise to work the miracle which the United Party professes to be able to work. It cannot promise to reduce national revenue and increase expenditure and yet have no mcrease 0 f taxation. We certainly do not attempt to win public confiESS. y I 11 0" electioneering devices. The ■ Labour Party has obviously been « fio ft pedalling' on a platform of which the extreme planks have been temporarily hidden. Nevertheless there is no room for doubt, that the objectives of extreme Socialism still form its real platform. These objectives, I feel confident, the great maiority of New Zealanders will never .™°P<> Naturally, the Labour-Social-ist Party hopes to gain seats by splitting votes in some Wherever the three Parties have representatives in the field a vote for the United candidate will be in effect a vo l^i or the L abour-Socialist Party. Three years ago I appealed to the electors to give the Government o sound working majority. That appeal was not made in vain. To-day I ask for a renewal of their confidence, bupported by the energy and industry of the people, we have steered the country through times of stress and difficulty. Th e status and credit of New Zealand have not only been maintivned. but hove never been hieher I am entitled, therefore, now that solid

prosperity is once again within our reach, to ask the electors for another sound working majority in Parliament to enable the Government, still further to put into operation its safe and progressive policy for the advancement of the Dominion."