COUNTRY QUOTA

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24237, 20 April 1944, Page 4

COUNTRY QUOTA

REMOVAL PREDICTED MR HOLLAND’S ADDRESS (P.A.) AUCKLAND, April 19. A prediction made in Parliament that Labour would seek to remove the country quota before the next Genera) Election was repeated and amplified by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr S. G. Holland) in an address at Remuera. Provisions in the Local Elections Amendment Bill, said Mr Holland, were only a stage in an attack designed to destroy the primary producers’ right to his present representation in Parliament. The country quota, giving a 28 per cent, loading to rural electorates, had been in operation since 1881, and had given excellent results in that changes of Government had always taken place when the people willed them. It recognised the special position of primary production, and the country’s dependence on it. Now, after nine ytears in office, the Labour Party saw the writing on the wall. It knew that it was going to be defeated some day, and that the next Government would be the National Party, perhaps sooner than later. Pressure groups, of whose existence his hearers knew well, were demanding that the basis of re-, presentation be altered. If the quota were removed, and the balance of industry against population were changed so as to place primary producers at a disadvantage, it would be one of the greatest tragedies in the political history of New Zealand. In fact, it was not too much to say that disaster lay ahead unless electors organised and expressed their opinion in so determined a fashion that the Government would see the wisdom of leaving the matter alone.