WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 8

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

"Some general points of policy for the guidance and information of the party's supporters" were placed before the Reform Party conference by Mr. Coates yesterday. We assume that as these were "some" points, the whole policy is not covered. There are certainly gaps which should be filled in. For example, there is "Removal of railways from political control, and the vesting of the administration in the hands of a nonpolitical board." Does this mean that a term in Opposition has brought the Reform Party to the point it never i reached in office—depoliticalised control, or is it merely that administration by a non-political * board will be limited, as administration by a general manager has been, to allow the political control to be exercised wherever the politicians wish? Again there is a paragraph: "De-rating of] farm lands," but not a word of I where the money is to come from, whd is to bear die cost of country services now met from rates, and j who is to control the spending ofj the money —representatives of the taxpayers or representatives of the ratepayers who no longer pay rates. Nor is there any statement of how de-rating is to be harmonised with; transport taxation and control. In fact transport policy has missed inclusion in Mr. Coates's "some general points."