CAMPAIGN NOTES

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

CAMPAIGN NOTES

STATE ADVANCES RESTRICTED. So long as the State Advances Department was properly managed and adequate safeguards were provided, he did not see why that Department should not advance all the moneys required for the development of primary industries and for building workers' dwellings, stated Mr. Walter Nash (Labour candidate) at the Lower Hutt last night. Why should people pay even | per cent, more to private financial institutions for money when the State Advances Office could provide it at a lower rate? It could advance to the farmers who wanted finance and to the workers who wanted homes all the money they needed. Tho State Advances Offieo ha'tl been established by Sir Joseph Ward, and had done splendid work. The scope of its operations had been widened by the late Mr. Massey, Irat it had. boon restricted to a most serious and harmful extent by the present Government. , THE MOST LIBERAL GOVERNMENT. The1 Eeform Government was the most progressive and most liberal Government New Zealand had ever had, stated at Ballance Mr. G. H. Smith (Eci'orm candidate for Pahiatua) in the opening speech of his campaign. All the pledges had been carried out to the best of its ability. It was a liberal Government because it had adopted every liberal measure passed by any previous Government, and extended and improved them. As the first step it had provided for that' section of the people that could not help themselves, the children and orphans who were cared for, educated, and prepared for, the battle of life under the Child Welfare Act. The Government had also provided of late years increased advantages in connection with' old ago i>ensions, widows, Maori war, and epidemic pensions, as well as the family allowances scheme, arid all the war pensions, bringing the total expenditure per annum to over £2,000,000, an achievement not approached by any previous Government. . "STATE INSTITUTIONS IN DANGER." Speaking, at Lower Hutt last night, Mr. W. A. Nash (Labour candidate) declared that tho big financial institutions had not only used their immense power to force the Government to reduce the limit on tho deposits received by the Post Office Savings Bank, but had also compelled the Government to restrain the Public Trustee from doing something that would benefit the people as a whole, but was against the interests of the private banks. During the past few years, too, the Government—in the interests of the banks, but against the interests of the people generally, and especially against tho interests of the primary producers anil home-seeking workers —had raised the rate of interest charged by the State Advances Office and had restricted that Department to one-half of the business it had been doing in\previous years. The great State financial institutions —the Public Trust Office, the State Advances Office, the Post Office Savings Bank, and the State Insuranco Offices —were among the finest of their type operating in'any country in the wo rid; but they were all in danger as long as the present "Government continued its policy of giving way to the big private financial institutions... OVERDRAFT RATES AND THE ELECTION. Yielding to the pressure brought to bear upon it by the big private financial institutions, stated Mr. Walter Nash (Labour candidate) at tho Lower Hutt last night, the Reform Government had embarked upon the policy of reducing the limit of the amount that tlic Post Office Savings Bank received on deposit ami paid interest on. The private banks, on the' other hand, had raised the rate of interest paid on deposits from 3*-per cent, to -i per cent., and from 4J per cent to ij| per cent.; with the result that -within six months the funds in the Post Office Savings Bank had been reduced by £3,000,000. At the same time tho banks had safeguarded their position by increasing the rate of interest charged on overdrafts. Bceently, however, they had reduced their, overdraft rates; and he wondered if that action on their part had anything to do with the coming General Election. THE "DANGER IN POLITICS." "The Labour Party is the danger in New Zealand politics to-day," declared the Hon. O. J. Ilawkon at Okinawa last week. It had all sorts of theories about land administration and its ideas were just about us nebulous to-day as they were years ago. That party was determined that land should never be held in froehold. "Wo fought that out with the Liberals years ago," said Mr. Hawjkon. "Reform is definitely freehold,

and.we don't want to go through the dispute about it again," he said in further urging importance to farmers of giving support to the _ Reform Party. If the Labour Party succeeded to power either by itself or with the aid of the United Party, the country would be faced with the leasehold question as well as higher tariffs, the latter means presenting the only logical method of meeting the higher wages demand. "A CLASH OF IDEAS." The present election contest was not a clash of individuals, not a clash of personalities, but a clash of ideas and of policies, declared Mr. \V. # A. Nash (Labour candidate) in his address at the Lower Hutt last night. Ho be- j lieved, ho added, that it was possible ; that the motives actuating the Eeform | Party were as high as those actuating the Labour Party. He did not ask the electors to judgo individuals and motives, but to examine the ideas lie sot before them, to examine the policies of the two contending parties—there were really only two parties in it, Eeform and Labour —and make their choice between them. PREFERS TO BE SEEIOUS. "I was told the public like light material," saf»« Sir James Gunson, in opening his political campaign in tlife Eeform interests at Henderson, "and I have been advised by my friends to introduce more humour and wit into my speeches. I have thought over that advice, and have come to the conclusion that that sort of thing is rather foreign to me. I have east my speech on lines that my training and experience indicate. For better or for worse, I feel I cannot depart from the lines I have always taken."