Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1935. NATIONAL AND LOCAL ISSUES

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1935, Page 8

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1935. NATIONAL AND LOCAL ISSUES

In the municipal election campaign the Labour Party! has sought to raise a political issue, and to suggest that national 'as well as local affairs are involved in the local election. "Remember," it is said, "a Lab<yir. Council is a forerunner of a Labour '' Government." This is merely confusing the issue. The Citizens' Election Committee has applied no national political test' to its candidates. It has sought to. secure the services of men' and women with experience and business ability to assist in local administration, and its' candidates can and do hold different views on national politics. But those views are not in question now and. Citizens candidates quite rightly are not discussing them. They are keeping to the strictly relevant question: the good government of Wellington City, harbour, and hospital. The Labour effort to give prominence to an entirely different question, is in itself significant. It is evidently realised that a contest on local affairs would not give the Labour Party scope for its extravagant condemnation. Civic government may nbt have been perfect, but the record of Wellington for the past two years is good. It has not been a slavish acceptance of the dictates of the Coalition Government, as the Mayor showed last night with his reference to exchange. On this question Wellington was opposed to the Government policy and the Mayor took a leading part in the opposition. There is, however, no need to stress the point further. Discerning people must already be convinced that .the real reason for<.Labour's joining of the two issues is that Labour sees that its prospects of gaining office on its municipal record and policy jare not bright. Moreover, its i attacks upon'the policy of the past council are ; being effectively met. So it is trying to make a show by shadow-sparring against the general Government, well knowing' that the leaders of the general Government will not enter the municipal political ring to reply. This is a part of the Labour campaign to seize power everywhere. It must be examined in conjunction with the campaigning which has been in. progress for over a year arid which is to receive a new impetus -from the Easter conference of the Labour Party. That conference was held to discuss Labour's plan for New Zealand and the [method and means of returning Lablour to power and carrying out the plan. The method and means of returning Labour to power, we may assume, were of first importance, for, in spite of what the Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party said, the platform has not been fixed and unchangeable. Mr. Savage said that, the Parliamentary Labour Party in Psfew Zealand owed its position in the political life of the country to its adherence x to the principles upon which its platform was based, and to the spirit'of co-opera-tion which for many years had prevailed amongst ■ its members. It would be interesting, in view of this boast of adherence to principles, to hear what has happened to the old main objective of the party: ? the socialisation of the means of, production, distribution, and, exchange. It may still be the party objective, but it i^ never emphasised. Even in the form of nationalisation 6f lahjd it has passed through various processes of change- till now even the modified "usehold" seems to be a thing of the past. Now the only service to be nationalised is banking,: and the vagueness of the statement on the point makes even that doubtful.

If, however, the address of, the president (Mr. \H. T. Armstrong) at the opening of the conference was the keynote of the "method and means of returning Labour to •power," it is not oh adherence to principles that Labour will rely, but on an, attempt to frighten the electors with bogies of its own making.

If Labour does not win at the next election, said Mr. Armstrong, there is grave danger of democratic government being overthrown in favour of some kind of dictatorship.

No reason whatever was given by Mr. Armstrong for his perception of this "grave danger" beyond a general and wholly irrelevant reference to Fascism on the Continent and "international warmongers." But he did endeavour, in a most unwarranted way, to tie the New Zealand Government to his bogy.

Our Government, he said, seem to be acting as the willing tool oi the war gods and are going military mad. They, have this year increased the Defence Vote enormously while at the same time they have reduced the vote for education. There seems to be no scarcity of money when it is needed for the destruction of human life,, but it is not available for the purpose of feeding hungry children and to preserve life. - ;

What are the plain facts? In 1930

Ihe Government reduced the Defence Vote drastically and rendered almost useless the machinery of defence. This was not clone in the belief that defence was no longer necessary, but solely to save money, and it could not have been done if New Zealand had not had the power of Britain assuring her safety. We discarded our own means of defence and relied upon Britain. This year we are displaying in modest measure a sense of our responsibility as a partner in the Empire. We are doing a little m6re to prepare for our defence and not relying so much on the overburdened Mother Country for protection. But the added provision does not make good the ground lost in the past four years. It will not suffice to bring the Air Service and coastal defences back to full efficiency. The Government, in fact, is "going military mad" by providing £260,000 more for land and air defence and £56,000 for the Naval Vote. This will bring the two votes to only a little more than they were in 1929 and much of the additional expenditure is'urgently necessary for works and. equipment which should have been, but were not, provided in the intervening years. Yet on the strength of this prudent and necessary provision Mr. Armstrong drew his picture of a Government acting' as the "willing tool of the war lords," and refusing to find money for humanitarian purr poses. Actually the Government proposes to spend on all forms of defence this year £977,637, and on the social services, including education, health, pensions, mental hospitals, and the National Provident Fund and friendly societies almost £7,000,000. In addition about £4,000,000 is provided from the Unemployment Fund and at least another million is spent by local authorities in hospital, unemployment, and other humanitarian serV vices. It is £12,000,000 to ; less than £1,000,000 and the Government is "gjoing military mad"! . It would be more to the ;point if* Labour would drop this extravagant nonsense and say plainly whether it approves of defence in any form or would it, in the event of war, sponge upon the'sea power of the Mother Country to preserve New Zealand, from disastrous destruction of the sea-borne trade which" is the life of the Dominion?