LABOUR CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 82, 16 October 1928, Page 10

LABOUR CAMPAIGN

OPENED AT LOWER HUTT ME, MSTFS ADDRESS Mr. W. A. Nash (Labour candidate for Hutt) opemecl his campaign at the I Lower Hutt Town Hall last night, tho Mayor (Mr. W. T. Strand) presiding over a largo attendance. On 14th November, said Mr. Nash, the electors would have to choose botweon the candidates of four parties— tho Couiifccy Party, the .United Party, tho Reform Party, and tho Labour Party; bwt in the ultimate analysis tho issue lay between the policies oi two parties ouly--the Labour Party and the Reform Party. The United Party candidates were just as much opposed to the Labour Party as was the Reform Party; tho only bone of contention between the United Party and the Be- I form Party being office and not policy. But between the Labour Party and the ■ other two parties there was a definite j clash of ideas and policies. The re- j suit of the coming elections would decide which party was to govern the I country and control the £254,000,000 of State assets, as apart from the gen- , oral wealth of the Dominion. It would decide the policy on which the country was to bo run; and the Government raised and spent some £25,000,000 a year to run the country. It would decade the policy in regard to the railways, with their £56,000,000 of assets, the Post Office, the State Advances Office, and other Government Departments. THE "EEFOEM" TAX POLICY. The aim of the Labour Party would be to raise the revenue from those best able to pay, and expend it for the benefit of the community as a whole; whereas the Bef orm Party had deliberately, definitely, and of set purpose taken taxation from the shoulders of the people with large incomes and had spread it in Customs taxes over the whole of the people. In- the mam, Customs taxation weighed just as heavily—if not more heavily—on the men with small incomes, as on the rich. In 1918 the revenue raised from the income tax was £5,619,000; last year it wa5'£3,422,000 only; a decrease of £2,200,000. Big incomes had been increasing all the time, but " Reform" had reduced the maximum rate of income tax from 8s 9Jd in tho £ to 4a 6d in the £. In 1918 the income ' tax -provided 45J per cent, of the, total ! revenue raised and Customs taxes provided just over 29 per cent.; but last year the income tax provided little more than 19J per cent, of the revenue, and the Customs taxes, which yielded £8,500,000, provided upwards of 51| per cent, of the revenue. The Gov-_ eminent, in short had increased tho load on the people least able to bear it, and had reduced the tax burden of those best aisle to pay. That was the very reverse of the Labour Party's policy. The present methods of raising revenue were wrong; but, in the main, the ways of spending it would remain, with the exception of. the adoption of a wiser method of expending whatever was raised for defence purposes. Today £1,000,000 a year was raised for defence; and there was, he declared, nothing more wasteful in the Dominion than the way in which that money was spent in alleged defensive measures. "MORE SETTLEMENT" FAILURE. , At the 1925 General Election, said Mr. Nash, tho present Prime Minister, outlining the Reform Party's land settlement policy, had stated that it was: I (1) to take over, large areas of puniiee lands for experimental purposes to ascertain their suitability for settlement; (2) to make a general survey of the lands of the Dominion, with a view to closer settlement; (3) to assist private landowners, by means of roads and so on, to cut up estates for closer settlement; and (4) if those methods proved unsuccesful, to bring into use the compulsory clauses of tho Land for Settlements Act. That was tho programme that Mr. Coates had laid down three years ago; but what had tho three years brought forth?' Statistics proved that there was less I land in occupation to-day than three years ago, and over 13,000 fewer people on the land than three years ago; a smaller number of holdings, and more land in fern, scrub, and secondary growth. Was he wrong, then, in saying that, either" Mr. Coates was not I sincere in regard to the land policy he I had laid down, or the Government had miserably failed to carry that policy out? Such failure, however, was not the arch crime. Difficulties might well ! crop up to prevent a Government carrying out its land policy within the period of ono Parliament. The arch | crime was to believe that closer settlcj meat could not be carried out; and the Reform Minister of Lands, the Hon. A. jD. M'Leod, had recently declared that the country had reached saturation point so far as settlement was concerned. That, in spite of the fact that 55 landowners held 4,836,000 acres of land, on which they employed in all only 509 persons! (Laughter.) ; Thoy | smiled; but there was nothing more j serious for a country than such a state of affairs. Tho excuse was made thatmuch of this land was mountainous and otherwise unfit for closer settlement; but he held that much of it could produce twenty-five times as much as it. produced to-day, and could employ hundreds of men where it now employed tens. (Applause.) As the result of the Reform Government, it paid people to own land and to sell land, but not to use land. But it did not benefit the country for £20 to be paid for land worth only £10; whereas it did benefit the country to produce, say, 201b of butter-fat ffom the land where only 101b had been- produced before. It was the use of the land, not profiteering in land, that a Government should encourage; and'in that regard' the policy of the Labour Party was in marked contrast to that of tho Reform Party. Tho aim of the Labour Party would be to ensure that the competent, willing farmer would be.paid to the full for all the time and energy ho spent on his farm; and it would find the farmer the necessary credit to develop his land to tho full. (Applause.) On tho motion of Mr. A. E. Sergeant a hearty vote' of thanks to, and I'oniuliMico in, Mr. Nash and the party lie stood' for was carried without dissent.