REPLY TO MR. COATES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 10

REPLY TO MR. COATES

LABOUR LEADER SPEAKS YEAR BOOK FIGURES (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, 19th October. Before a crowded audience, which loudly cheered him when he appeared, Mr. 11. E. Holland, Leader of the Labour Party, addressed the Dunedin electors in Burns's Hall to-night. In replying to the Prime Minister, Mr. Holland said that he had been struck by the extreme modesty of some of Mr. Coates's statements. The speaker read a lengthy list of progressive reforms which Mr. Coatcs claimed to have brought about. There was just one thing that Mr. Coates1 did not take credit for, he sai<V and that was the llight across the Tasmau. (Laughter.) The Prime Minister's well-known modesty had, no doubt, prevented him from claiming that. Mr. Holland stated that ho noticed that Mr. Coates had said that in 1925 the Government set out with a clear programme, and no fanciful schemes. Fanciful, said Mr. Holland, was not the word to describe the promises made in huge advertisements which appeared in New Zealand papers before the elections. The Government had not divulged who had paid for them. He invited tho other parties to do as tho Labour Party did, and public acknowledge contributions to its funds. When one went through Mr. Coatos's speech in Christchurch, continued Mr. Holland, one found that most of the promises which he had made in 1925 remained unfulfilled, notwithstanding the fact that he had such a huge majority. Mr. Coates talked of forfeitures and surrenders and said that most of the settlers concerned in recent years had voluntarily surrendered their leases so that they could take them up again under a better tenure. The forfeitures and surrenders which had taken place betrayed the extent to which men had been driven off the land by Mr. Coates's land policy. If the Prime Minister thought that the figures would show his own policy in a better light, let him give the figures. He had not done so up to the present. Ihe Government had been cutting figures out of the Year Book since thos De figures had been used by their opponents. rr "Let Mr. Coates look to New' Zealand," said Mr. Holland in dealing with references which Mr. Coates had made to the Labour Party in Australia. We cannot solve the problems of Australia and Australia cannot solve ours. Lot f™ Zealand look after its own probTVLL PAGE CUT OUT. In connection with tho total registered mortgages, continued Mr. Holland i lqos v Pag° u had been cut out °f the 1928 lear Book. The same ■ thing applied m the case of the Post Offic? Savings Bank. It W as peculiar that this had happened since the Labour larty had made use of the figures. The Reform Party had been in office for sixteen years, and it said that if it wore given- another tern, it would do the tilings that it had promised previously after sixteen.years of office. It said that tho country was just turning the corner. b Mr. Holland made only a brief reference to the United Party, stating that Liberals had so often voted with Reform that there was no line of demarcation between the parties. The only alternative to Reform was Labour In reply to an interjector Mr. Holland stated that when the Tory Government was in oflice in New South Wales it had a bigger deficit, and a bigger unemployment problem than ever the State had had under Labour. In further refer- ' Vi™ ,i°,, tllC Post Office Savings Bank Mr. Holland stated that the reduction of deposit on which interest could be paid from £5000 to £2000 had resulted an an excess of withdrawals over doposits of over £3,000,000. The Government had borrowed from'privately-own-ed banks ;■ 5J per cent., money 'which it previously could obtain from the Saviiigs Bank. RELIEF WORK PAY. In reply to the •Prime Minister's references to relief works, Mr. ilolhnd said (hiit tho Labour Party did not think Unit there .should bo any relief works, but considered that instead necessary public works should be undertaken. If they wore worth doing this Government should pay the standard rale of wages. H e proceeded to explain that it was impossible'for a married man to keep a family on 12s a day in relief works, when he had to pay

25s a week to live at the works, and when time was often lost through bad weather. Union secretaries, he told an iutorjector, were only carrying out what legislation provided for, and without them men on the job would be worse off than they now were. Mr. Coates said that he could not provide for every man at the standard rate of pay. What was the Government for? Every man willing to work should be provided for. Could the Government stand idly by and know that A-onien and children were suffering? What consolation was it to be told by Mr. Coates that there was unemployment in Britain? That did not divest the Government of one shred of responsibility. Mr. Coates had said that if standard wages were paid on relief works there would bo an inflow of men from Australia. He could not understand that Mr. Coates could have thought of such a thing. Perhaps the man who had written his speech for him had made a mistake. Mr. Holland called upon his audience to imagine a starving man in Australia paying £10 10s, tho lowest second-class fare, to come to New Zealand and get w6rk. Mr. Coates claimed that it was the aim of the Government to reduce taxation. He had said so in his advertisements in 1925, but every tax reduction made since then had benefited the wealthy man. Mr. Holland proceeded to enumerate Labour's charges against the Governmen and concluded by saying that although there were three parties in the .field tho main fight was between Reform on the one hand and Labour on the other. Mr. Veitch had stated that in the event of a motion of no-confidence in the House his party would never vote to put Labour in power. Mr. Holland accused tho Reform Party of malaministration and broken promises and stated that the country was feeling the reaction of tho carrying out of the Reform policy. He also claimed that farmers were revolting against the' Government and vigorously attacked the Government for what he described as its unsystematic and unbusinesslike methods of running Parliament.