MR WATTS OPENS CAMPAIGN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25021, 1 November 1946, Page 8

MR WATTS OPENS CAMPAIGN

LABOUR’S TACTICS CRITICISED «PSYCHOLOGY OF FEAR ” ALLEGED Mr J. T. Watts, National Party candidate for St. Albans, opened his campaign in the Rugby Street Hall last evening. There was an attendance of 100, and, after an attentive hearing, he was accorded a unanimous vote of thanks and confidence. Criticising Labour’s published policy as an “ill-digested mass of pious hopes,” Mr Watts made four criticisms of Labour’s tactics in the election campaign. First, the Labour Party claimed to have removed fear from New Zealand; but its candidates were using a psychology of fear in the election campaign, he said. They were trying to create the fear that the National Party would cut wages, reduce social security, put people out of work, and create slump conditions. This was ridiculous. If the National Party did any of these things it would not last three years in office. There was no reason for it to do these things. .Second, the Labour Party was conducting a campaign of misrepresentations, half truths, and personal attacks, Mr Watts alleged. Most of these were directed against the leader of the National Party (Mr S. G. Holland), an example being the continued use of the words “applied lunacy.’’ Mr Watts said he himself had heard Mr J. Thorn get up and withdraw a statement he had made in the House, but still it went on. The Labour Party alleged that the National Party had opposed everything that had been done by the Government. Mr Watts said that in his three years in the House there had been approximately 120 public statutes, dealing with such subjects as minimum wages, improvements in sScial security, slum clearance, superannuation, nurses and midwives, and factory conditions. On no more than . three or four occasions had the Opposition attacked bills, but it had performed its function of criticising individual clauses in these bills and suggesting improvements. Differences in Policies Third, the Labour Party alleged that the National Party had adopted its policy. The Rt. Hon. W. Nash said that the National Party was backing up and supporting all that Labour had done. On the other hand, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser said the reactionary progosals of the National Party (which e had not seen whejj he spoke) would plunge the people into anarchy. Electors would have to take their choice, and Mr Watts suggested that they ask themselves questions like 'the following: Did the National Party believe in ultimate socialism? Had the National Party adopted compulsory unionism? Had ihe National Party supported the substitution of a town quota for the country quota? Did the National Party support State monopolies? Did it support political patronage in the Public Service? Did it support political control of broadcasting? Fourth, there was no mention of socialism in the Labour Party’s campaign, nothing to indicate that they believed in the first plank of Labour’s platform. Either they had found that it had not worked, or they were keeping people in the dark, believing that socialism wag not acceptable, but that if they kept it quiet they could advance steadily, as they had done in the past. The 1945 conference of the Labour Party had decided, apparently without dissent, that the election should be fought on the issue of ultimate socialism. Mr Watts described the Government’s oil deal as part of the socialisation of the means of distribution. The Government already fixed minimum and maximum prices of petrol. After Pearl Harbour, New Zealand was cut off from Persian wells and had to draw supplies from America. There was no reason for being sure that it would be possible to get supplies from Persia in the event of another war. It had been suggested that the petrol business in New Zealand was a mono-

poly; but it was licensed under the Government’s Bureau of Industry. Mr Watts reviewed the policy of the National Party at length. He said that it could not promise large reductions in taxation until it was in a position to examine all the figures, but that it was clear there was room for reductions. Since the Budget, the Government had agreed to find £1,250.000 for keeping down the retail price of butter and cheese, and another £400,000 to keep down the price of meat without blinking an eyelid. Obviously the money had been there. The latest statistical summary of the Reserve Bank, analysing Budget figures, arrived at the conclusion that the financial year would end with a balance in the public accounts of £21.000.000. Since then the figures for the first quarter of the financial year showed that revenue was up and expenditure down. The September accounts had not yet been published, perhaps because Mr Nash did not want them out before the election. They would probably show revenue still higher and expenditure still lower. He was prepared to prophesy that the balance at the end of the year would be higher than £21.000.000.

Asked his attitude to depriving military defaulters of civil rights, Mr Watts told a questioner that a distinction should be drawn between defaulters and conscientious objectors. If a man had not been able to satisfy an appeal, board or a revision authority that he was a conscientious objector he was a defaulter and 'hould be deprived of his civil rights for a period. Once it was agreed that there should be freedom of conscience, the genuine conscientious objector was an ordinary member of the community, and was entitled to his civil rights*