OTAKI

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 103, 28 October 1925, Page 9

OTAKI

MR. W. H. FIELD, M.P., AT

JOHNSONVILLE

Mr. W. H. Field, M.P. (Reform candidate for Otaki), addressed tho electors at Johnsonvillc last night, Mr. A. Moore presiding over a good attendance.

Mr. Field, who was received with applause, expressed regret at not having been able to come to Johnsonvil!e earlier in the campaign. Johnsonville had been a very good friend of his when ho first entered Parliament

some 2(i y^oars ago as a supporter of the Right. Hon. J{. .1. Seddon. lie had intended to retire from politics at the close of the 1!>22-!M 'Parliament; but the Prime Minister and his old friends had pressed him so hard to come forward again that lie liad agreed to do so. lie pointed out that Mr. lfnrkncss, whose candidature might result in the return of Mr. Semplc, had stood at the last election as an Independent Reformer. After 11is defeat, he turned to the Labour Party, and accepted their objective, but failed to get the Labour nomination, because lie had within six years stood .for another parly; and he then turned to tho .Liberal—or, as it was now called. tho Nationalist—Party, ilo seemed, therefore, to bo a Labour candidate masquerading as a Liberal;

and every voto given to him would not only bo thrown away, but would be a voto that if given to the speaker might help him to defeat the Labour candidate. GIVE MR. COATES A CHANCE The new Prime Minister, said Mr. Field, had already shown grout capacity for leadership, and had been acclaimed '■ throughout the country wherever he )iad been -during the present campaign; and he thought that all moderate - minded electors would feel that he ought to ba given a chance for three years as Prime Minister. He said that, while he was' a Protestant, he was not a P.P.A. candidate, though that organisation had, without his consent, put him on its list at the last election. He opposed Mr. ITarkncss's programme, including a State, bank and State shipping; and stat'-.' od that Australian witnesses before the Commission on the State bank proposal, of which he was a member, had given evidence to show that the New Zealand system of tho State Advances Department, together with tho Government-controlled Bank of New Zealand, was. a far bettor system for settlers and others who desired' advances than the Commonwealth Bank. Mr. Somple had said that that was the opportunity that Mr. Seddon had missed; that he should then have founded a State bank. But he could not agree with Mr. Somple in that. Then, we had »the Public Trust Office, which was another great lending Department. Referring to the . statement by Mr. llarkuess that the Government's policy in regard to what had ruined the poultry farmers, he said he had obtained a report from the Agricultural Department, which stated that the high price for fowlwheat and for wheat generally was due, not to the Government's control of wheat, but to the high world 's price ruling for wheat. He maintained that the Government had been doing all that it could for the dairying industry; and, while he agreed that our farmers ought to have cheap manures, the cost of manufacturing the phosphates was so great that it was hard to see how the difficulty could be got over. The Government, however, had promised himself and other members to investigate the matter to ascertain if any middlemen were getting excessive profits, and, if so, the Government would deal with them. ' RETURNED SOLDIERS His opponents had said that, the Government had favoured its big landed supporters by abolishing the income tax on.farmers; but that tax had only been imposed for war purposes, and the late Mr. Massey had promised to repeal it when the war was over. Tho big landholders were paying graduated land tax as well as the ordinary land tax; and those of them who were heavily . mortgaged had had a very trying time of it indeed.

Mr. Seniplc and Mr. Harkness had strongly criticised . the Government's treatment of returned soldiers; but he had received letters from a largo body of these men at Ohau and Manakau, who said that they were well satisfied with the treatment they had received. That, he believed to be ' the general feeling throughout- ho country. He had been the first in Parliament to ask for revaluation of soldiers' farms. As to the Government's having expended Sir Joseph Ward's accumulated surpluses, ho stated that the money had been mainly taken for the gratuity to returned sol-, diers; and ho did not think anybody could object to that. It was not true that the 'credit of the country had gone to the dogs; it was still as good on the London market as that of any other country in the world.

The increased Customs duties, he claimed, had been put on luxuries; and the Government had tak'en taxation off the necessaries of life, having reduced the tax on tea alone by £439,000. A recent departmental report showed, too, that at least half of the Customs taxation was paid by some 200,000 of the wealthier people in the country. The tax on tobacco had been reduced; and he believed that it would be reduced still further next session. He pointed out that of the 66 millions by which the country's indebtedness had increased under the Reform " Government, 90 per cent, was expended on interest-earning under- ■ takings, and was not costing the people anything; while, of the balance, the expenditure on education and suah like was indirectly inter-est-earning, inasmuch as it greatly assisted the development of the. country. As to the great "prosper-ity-barometer," the Post Office Savings Bank, about which Mr. ' Ha^k*iiess had been so pessimistic, he stated tlfat the deposits in this "people's bank" had increased from 1(5 millions in 1913 to 36 millions to-day; and this year the deposits had exceeded the withdrawals by no less than £730,000. "Mr. Scmple, he said,' was his real opponent. Mr. Semple would certainly get more votes than Mr. Harkness, and might get more than

himself (Mr. Field). A voice: "No fear," and applause aud laughter. Mr. Field dealt at length with Mr. Somple'a policy, strongly opposing the Labour ' Party objective —"the socialisation of all the moans of production, distribution, and exchange"—and supporting, tho present electoral system, with the country quota, as against proportional representation. He noticed that under the Labour 'Party there were to. be no lawyers but State lawyers. (Laughter.) Well, he would be one of them. Ho thought he could draw up a will or a marriage settlement as well as any man: only he feared that by that time they would all bo paupejrs with nothing to, settle or to bequeath. (Laughter and applause.) The Reform slogan was: "More business in Government, and less Government in business." Mr. llcrron, manager of tho municipal milk department, "Wellington, had told a Parliamentary Commit Ice last session that the reason why l.lin City Council did no I; establish a ; inuii icipn.l dairy .f:ivm was because they would be up against the Jabour problem. That was only too true; and tho same difficulty 'would confront tho Government if they tried to establish a State dairy farm. Tho time was not yet ripe, if it ever would bo, for such Socialistic undertakings; and he was strongly opposed to them, lie defended the Government's immigration policy; and maintained that (lie Government had done all it could in regard to tho housing shortage and in the way of increasing pensions. Of course, all of them would liko to seo nioro liberal pensions paid; and he believed that the

Government, if returned to power, as he predicted they would be, would increase the . pensions next Parliament. Mr. Coates had snid that the slums must go, and he heartily endorsed that statement.

"A REFORM-LIBERAL CANDIDATE"

He regretted that fusion had not been brought about before the election; bnt it could be said that, strictly, the Reform and Liberal Parties were not justified in fusing until they had a mandate from the electors. He believed that fusion would take place immediately aftor the election, and he would strongly support that fusion. Ho had been a Liberal, but he joined tho Reform Party iu 1014, because he held that there was then no real difference between the parties. He believed that the position was tho same today; and, as he stood for fusion, ho thought that he might claim to be standing for both the Reform and the Liberal Parties. Amid frequent interruptions, he criticised severely Labour land policy, " which, he stated, no man really understood —not even the Labour Party themselves; and he expressed the hope that the shipping, strike would so'on be a thing of :.the past. New Zealand had spent about £3 per head of the population on soldier settlement, and got a splendid asset in the soldier settlers'— (applause) — but Great Britain had spent something like £6 per head of the population at Home on soldiers' "doles" alone, and had nothing whatever to show for it. He stood for "Coates instead of chaos," because he believed we would have chaos unless we returned the present Government to power. (Applause.)

A vote of thanks and confidence was accorded tho candidate.