WHAT WOULD LABOUR DO ?

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 141, 16 June 1932, Page 10

WHAT WOULD LABOUR DO ?

A recessional platform campaign by Labour will have little value or interest unless it is constructive. It is not enough to. show-that the Go-, vernment's enactments suffer from, anomalies. ■ It was inevitable that interferences with settled conditions —as interest and rent —would produce anomalies; friends as well as foes of the Government foresaw that, and see it to-day possibly more plainly than do the Labour critics. If Labour criticism is to be effective it must weigh up the Government policy on balance-—good points and bad—rand then offer what will be on balance a better constructive plan as an alternative. .What is Labour's alternative? And if the alternative is acceptance by the Governments the full responsibility of feeding and employing—at some standard wage —all people not fed or employed, how is this burden to be financed? Is the! Government 'to find some of the money by ceasing, to pay interest on Government loans, as Mr. Lang did? Is it to find more of the money by expropriating (either directly or through taxation on capital) the property of the richer .taxpayer (or of his mortgagees) as Mr. Lang threatened to do?. On the recent election, people at last knew exactly where Mr. Lang stood. The public of New Zealand are equally entitled to know where Labour stands. Sincerity demands an alternative, and it should be a candid alternative. Merely to say "take over the banks" carries nowhere. Exactly what will a Labour Government do' when it becomes banker? t