GENERAL ELECTION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 5, 1 October 1935, Page 10

GENERAL ELECTION

Democrat Candidate For

Wellington East

MR. W. DUNCAN’S NAME

MENTIONED

An announcement that. Air. William Duncan, a member of the Wellington City Council, will contest the ’Wellington East seat at the general election under the Democrat banner is expected to be made at Auckland to-night by Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, leader of the Democrat Barty.

Mr. Hislop is to address a public meeting at tlie Auckland Town Hall and will make known the policy of the party. He is also expected to announce the seat which he himself proposes to contest.

Mr. Duncan, a member of the City Council, has been a resident of Wellington for the last 35 years. Of that period he has been in business on his own account for 27 years, as principal of the firm of Duncan and Mclntosh. Alanners •Street. He has always taken the liveliest interest in sport of all kinds. In former years lie was a very keen yachtsman. and was commodore of tlie Bort

Nicholson Yacht Chib for twelve years, rind is still the delegate of that body Oil the Yacht and Motor-boat Association, of wliich he was chairman for three years. Mr. Duncan was for twenty-live years a member of tlie council of the M cliington Football Association, of which he was for five years chairman. He was also on tlie council of the New Zealand Football Association. He was a foundation member of the Wellington Ratepayers’ Association.

GOVERNMENT’S POLICY Better Than Those of Labour Administrations MR. MAZENGARB’S VIEW “Whatever criticism oilier people may make against the Administration in New Zealand for having brought about a reduction in salaries and wages and for having imposed an unemployment, tax and a sales tax, it docs not lie in the mouth of the New Zealand Labour Barty to blame the Government for adopting these measures when their brothers and cousins across tlie Tasman Sea had done these things earlier and to a greater extent than the New Zealand Government did,” said Air. 0. C. Alazengarb. Nationalist candidate for Wellington East, in an address to friends and supporters at Roseneath last, night.' , Certain Labour speakers were wrongly blaming the Government for what they called its policy of deflation, said Air. Alazengarb. Economic history had shown timt whenever an inflationary policy was adopted the people most hardly hit were the poorer classes, aud the people who were in receipt of fixed incomes from investments. When deflation was practised the rentier class obtained a very substantial advantage over the rest of the community because they were able to make their fixed incomes go farther in the purchase of goods and services. It was well known that landlords, mortgagees, and bondholders had, under the policy of readjustment, been compelled to accept a reduction of 20 per cent, in their fixed incomes, which showed that the policy could not be truly called a deflationary pdlicy. AVlien the financial storm and the reduction of about 40 per cent, in the national income bad driven the country into the economic doldhims the Government in New Zealand had been forced to adopt, the same policy as the Scullin Labour Government in the Commonwealth of Australia and tlie Lang Labour Government, in New South Wales had adopted, but the Dominion was fortunate that the Government did not go as far as tlie Australian Labour Governments had »een obliged to go in their attempts to balance the Budget. “There should be no need.” he said, “to remind eleeti I•• of the fact that under the Lang Labour Administration file Government Savings Bank had been obliged to close its doors to 1.300.000 depositors, and that there was one ‘black week’ in which the New South Wales Government was unable to pay any salaries at all.” Two schools of political thought in New Zealand were mentioned by Air. Alazengarb. There were those who envisaged the complete socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange of goods, and who accordingly supported the Labour Party, and there were those who opposed any policy which involved a plunge into the unknown waters of socialistic experiment. Unfortunately, that second school of thought was divided into three main classes: (1) Those who were staunch supporters of tlie party at present in power, (2) those who, because they objected to certain things the present Government had done, were minded to turn tlie Government out of office, even although the alternative would be putting into power a party of whose policy they did not. approve, and (3) (hose who considered that tlie present Administration had been oversolicitous of the welfare of the rural population at the expense of the cities, but who believed that the remedy was for tlie cities to elect as their representatives men who could make their influence felt by resisting any legislation which might be inimical to the interests of town-dwellers. It was very unfortunate that the second school of thought was so divided and that, without the opportunity of recording a. preferential or transferable vote, tlie Labour Barty was being presented witii :i golden opportunity to bring its socialistic schemes into being

After Mr. Mazengarb had answered several questions, the meeting passed a vote of corffidenco in him.