LABOUR'S CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 81, 7 April 1931, Page 10

LABOUR'S CHARGE

"PLEDGES DISHONOURED 1*

"The short session now being held is one of the most remarkable in the history of the New Zealand Parliament —remarkable because of tl^e flagrant manner in which the Government of the Day has dishonoured almost every election pledge on which it secured office, and also remarkable for the unscrupulousness which has characterised the methods employed in certain quarters to justify what is being done," stated Mr. H. E. Holland, M.P., Leader of the Labour Party, in presenting the report of the Parliamentary Labour Party to the Labour Conference to-day.

"The session will live in the history of the Labour movement because of the sustained fight made by the Labour Party against a wage-reducing policy that must be economically harmful to New Zealand. It will also be remembered because of the manner in which predominating class interests drove two parties into solid combination against the salary arfd wage earners of the Dominion. The Labour Party's fight against the wage reductions commenced with the no-confidence amendment moved on the Address-in-Beply on 12th March, and ended with the third reading of the Finance Bill on 2nd April, a:period of three weeks. "The Finance Bill, which has been closured through the House and is now before the Legislative Council represents a determination to place upon the shoulders of the Public servants and the wage workers generally the immensely major portion of the financial burden arising out of the temporary economic depression, and in this respect it is the most pronounced piece of class legislation that Parliament has been asked to pass in recent years.' Fully seized of the injustice of the measure, and equally well aware that we should be confronted with the combined strength of the United and Reform Parties, we carried the fight to the Government at the first opportunity." ,