THE ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24052, 14 September 1943, Page 6

THE ELECTION

NATIONAL PARTY LEADER SPEECHES IN OWN ELECTORATE More than 500 electors of Christchurch North heard Mr S. G. Holland, the National Party candidate, outline his party’s policy when he paid a flying visit to the electorate yesterday in the course of his Dominion tour as leader of the party. Last evening an audience of 400 in the St. Matthew’s Church Schoolroom gave Mr Holland an enthusiastic reception. He received musical honours and a unanimous vote of thanks, and was loudly applauded several times during his speech. Mr W. S. Mac Gibbon presided. Yesterday afternoon Mr Holland addressed about 150 people in the Rugby Street Schoolroom, where he was given musical honours and a vote of thanks and confidence. The National Party addressed itself to causes, said Mr Holland, in explaining the policy for dealing with the five giants ot unemployment, want, sickness, ignorance, and squalor. Speaking of sickness, he said the party’s proposal of regular examinations, including X-ray examinations, of school children, apart from detecting complaints in their early stages then, would accustom children to the idea of regular overhauls. He had visited the remedial camp at Rotorua, where amazing results had been achieved, not only in providing fighting men for New Zealand out of those who were unfit, but also in giving the men themselves good health. Now, because there was less demand from the forces, it was suggested that the camp should be closed. He believed that they should keep centres for corrective treatment after the war. To obtain industrial harmony they wanted more of the spirit of seeing the other point of view. He had tried to keep that spirit in looking at the Government’s operations, and had given the Government credit where he thought it was due though he had yet to hear a Labour man say there was any good in the National Party. For instance, he thought the Government, which had been responsible for their training, deserved some of the credit for the magnificent performances of New Zealanders overseas. Mr Holland repeated what he had said in opening the campaign that there was lack of balance in New Zealand industry with too many people doing the things they did not want and too few making the things they did want. This meant that there should be improved methods of training manpower. They would not send # civilians into battle if they had not r been properly trained. When those men became civilians again they should be trained as thoroughly for their peace-time occupations. Mr Holland discussed the party’s housing policy, the scheme to train ' home helpers (which was based on the experience gained at the Strathcona Home Training Hostel and in the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union service), adjustments in taxation to assist the thrifty and the family, and the extension of the scholarship system. They were asked: “What will it cost?” Surely they had got past that stage. If they had been asked at the beginning of the war to find £150,000,000 a year for the war everyone would have thought it absurd, but to save New Zealand they had found it necessary. No one could convince him that the money system could be made to work only for the destruction of life and property. A soldier with overseas flashes on his shoulders asked Mr Holland if he thought it was right that parents should have to spend fairly large sums on parcels of essential clothing for men who were prisoners of war. He had heard, though he had no evidence, that some had even had to send blankets. Mr Holland said he was not as well informed on the question as he would like to be. If necessaries could be supplied to prisoners of war, they should certainly be supplied by the Government. At the same time he did not think they should get to the stage where the Government supplied everything. Parents would always want to send their sons some of the little extras. \ HURUNUI SEAT NATIONAL CANDIDATE’S POLICY “I am before you as a common farmer, but with the desire to get a fair deal for all,” said Mr W. H. Gil- ' lespie. National Party candidate for the Hurunui seat, at a meeting of about 270 electors held in the Rangiora Town Hall last evening. The Mayor of Rangiora (Mr C. W. Tyler) presided, and the candidate was given an attentive hearing. Mr Gillespie said that wherever farmers’ interests were concerned, he would do his utmost to look after them. He would not forget the problems of the wives and mothers as well.

Mr Gillespie said that class legislation would have to go by the board for all time if we were to have a happy people. Referring to the workers of the Dominion, he said that his main concern was for the ferm worker. It was not right that any one industry should enjoy privileges not enjoyed by another. He personally would like to see the farm worker have Saturday afternoon off, said Mr Gillespie, and if the man had worked for 12 months for the one employer, he suggested that he should be paid a bonus in lieu of overtime. These privileges should be brought in not by compulsion, but by making conditions for the farmer such that he would automatically be able to grant them. Rehabilitation was the next job to winning the war, Mr Gillespie said. No doubt many returning men would want to go on the land, and it was the National Party’s policy to ensure that any man taking on farming should have had adequate experience before starting on his own account. The party had a scheme for training lads on the group system. While he was not entirely in favour of the system, said Mr Gillespie, he advocated sending lads out to established farms for 12 months, during which the State would, possibly, pay their wages. The farmer would have the boy’s services in return for the training he gave him. Rehabilitation should include schemes of national importance, said Mr Gillespie. He suggested that drainage should be controlled “from the hill-top to the sea,” and that more hydro-electric plants were needed, especially to give country people cheaper power. Mr Gillespie advocated the decentralisation of rehabilitation committees, and the establishment of a committee in every county in New Zealand to cater more personally for the needs of the districts’ own men. “We don’t win the war by sending everybody away to fight,” said Mr Gillespie, in discussing the manpower problems of the Dominion. “If the powers that be have over-committed themselves—and they have —they should have directed some men home, possibly at soldiers’ rates of pay.” Men retained at home in the intersts of production should have the same consideration as returned men, he added. Private enterprise was being slowly but surely crushed, said Mr Gillespie. The system of private enterprise had largely made the Dominion, and had been the source of supply for the munitions of war. Workers’ interests as well as those of the employers had to be watched. The recent Land Bill was a camouflaged measure to socialise the land, both in the country and in the towns. Under the bill, said Mr Gillespie, the freedom of the property owner was at stake. The bill had also been given the cloak of rehabilitation: but why should the property owner have been singled out for attention when rehabilitation was the job of the whole community? High taxation, rural housing, and unemployment had always seemed to him to be related problems, said Mr Gillespie. He made a plea for more attention to the needis of the farming people for adequate housing. Farmers deserved cheap money for their building programmes. Lack of housing was robbing the Dominion of its rightful country labour and the next generation of farmers. If these problems were not tackled, said- Mr Gillespie, there would be regimentation of the people back to the land.

At the conclusion of his. address, during which there were no interjections, Mr Gillespie answered a number oQ questions, and was accorded a hearty x&te of thanks.