MR. HOLLAND’S REPLY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 54, 27 November 1929, Page 12

MR. HOLLAND’S REPLY

REFORM’S POLICY SINCE 1922 Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Labour Barty, has handed to the Press a reply to the statements made by the Leader of the Opposition (the Hou. J. G. Coates) in the interview published yesterday. , , . “In his reference to the salary reductions made by the Reform Government in 1922, Mr. Coates wholly evades the point made by me,” stated Mr. Holland, "that at the time the cuts were made the Budget for the previous year showed a cash balance of more thau £6,000,000, while the accumulated surpluses amounted to well over £23,000,000. He also evades my statement that while the Public Service cuts (according to the then Minister of Finance) were estimated to save £BOO,OOO to the State, tax reductions to wealthy landowners and others were estimated to lose to the State more than £900,000 under the 1922 legislation, with nearly a quarter of a million additional under the legislation of 1J23, clearly establishing that the remissions to a comparatively small number of wealthy taxpayers were made at the expense ol Public servants.

Policy in Good Times.

“Mr. Coates recalls the Reform Government’s promise to the Public servants that -their positiou would be reviewed at the earliest possible moment when the finances of the country permitted. I have shown that in 1922 the finances ot the country were in such a healthy condition that the salary cuts were wholly unnecessary and therefore unjustified ; but still they were made. Furthermore, in later years, when nearly every member o£ Mr. Coates's Cabinet was proclaiming that the Dominion had turned the. corner and that the Reform Party's administration had brought an era of prosperity, Mr. Coates was persistently, and even inconsistently, resisting every endeavour to have salary improvements made. As late as the closing hours of the 1928 session he was leading his party into the lobby to vote down a motion for the restoration of the conditions of the 1920 agreement, made with the Public servants by . his own Government; and ou the hustings in the same year he was declaring that no Public Service officer was then suffering from the effects of the Public Expenditure Adjustment Act.' “It may also be well to recall that when the Post and Telegraph representatives in 1928 pointed to the fact that the income of the Department exceeded the expenditure by over a million, and reminded the Government of Sir James Parr’s promise made in 1925 that success on a commercial basis would make the time opportune for urging salary improvements, they were told that notwithstanding what the profits of the’Department might be in the future, the Government had decided that the existing maxima provided adequate remuneration for rank and file duties. That showed that Mr. Coates was determined to hold the Public servants down to the existing maxima. “ ‘Hansard’ teems with division lists which emphasise this fact, anil consequently Mr. Coates need not now be surprised’ that both the general public and Public servants are disinclined to take his death-bed repentance pronouncements of to-day as having any material foundation. Motion of Last Session. “It is conducive to merriment to find Mr. Coates pleading the excuse for his vote against the Labour motion and in support of the United Government that the motion was worded so as not to embarrass the Government. 4hat ludicrous excuse has not any greater degree of sincerity than the right hon. gentleman’s reasons for his unbroken record of administrative and legislative opposition to salary improvements; but if he felt that, unlike Mr. Wright and Mr. Samuel and Mr. Macmillan, he could not support the motion, why did he not himself move a motion to express what he now says he and his party stand for? As the Lender of the Opposition lie must have been called before myself or any other private member. The reason why Mr. Contes didn't so move is, of course, that any motion moved by him in condemnation of a United Government failure to keep faith with the Public servants could only have constituted a repudiation of his own policy. His vote to save the United Government wns, after all, only a vote of justification of his own line of con-j'.iet.

“Finally. Mr. Coates’s gesture regarding tlie £lOO bonus will not be likely to help him much, especially in view of the decision arrived at by his own party caucus. The stinging breach-of-faith charge made against him on the floor of the House in this connection by Mr. Harris, Refifftn member for Waitemata, is sufficient comment at this stage,’’