SPEECH OF LABOUR PARTY LEADER

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 57, 1 December 1923, Page 7

SPEECH OF LABOUR PARTY LEADER

REFORM, LIBERALS. AND IMMIGRATION.

By Telegraph.— Press Association Westport, November 30.

Mr. 11. Holland, M.P., Leader of the Labour Party, has been addressing largely-attended meetings throughout the mining districts this week, and has been accorded votes of confidence in himself and the Labour Party at each meeting. Speaking to a crowded meeting at Millerton yesterday afternoon,' he reviewed the work of tho last two sessions. He strongly condemned the taxation reductions, the Customs duty on sugar, the £lOO,OOO vote for the Singapore naval base, and a number of minor measures, including the forthcoming Legislature Amendment Bill. Mr. Holland declared that it was inevitable that the Reform and Liberal Parties, whose foundation politics were identical, would shortly amalgamate their forces , against Labour. In the short session of this year, he said, there were four divisions, a majority against, the Government in any one of which, would have ended the present Administration, and yet in two of the divisions the Liberals voted as a party for the Government. Once they voted against the Government, and once they ran away. During last session there were eight no-confidence motions, and in five divisions the Liberals voted for the Government, and against the Government in three. Even the Liberal’s own no-confidence amendments wore defeated by the votes of Liberal members. Referring to an article by Mr. Julian Grande’in tho “New York Tinies.” in which Mr. Grande quoted Mr. Holland as saying that New Zealand could •do with two million immigrants, the speaker said that what, he told Mr. Grande was that New Zealand could carry ten milb'ons of a population, provided we had effective organisation of the country’s resources. Ho had explained that the Laixnir Party demanded that permanent work nt the standard rate of waves without displacing any worker already liere should bo promised for every immigrant upon arrival : and further, that thev wanted housing accommodation for the -’inmigrants. Failing these provisions, they would oppose Stateaided immigration.