"STUPID AND UNFAIR"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 23

"STUPID AND UNFAIR"

"It is stupid and unfair for people to go round saying that the Government of New Zealand is responsible for the conditions that obtain here today," declared Mr. O. C. Mazengarb, Nationalist candidate for Wellington East, when addressing a meeting of

electors at the St. Jude's Hall, Lyall Bay, last night. . ' ' . ■

Mr. Maaengarb pointed out that - because the Government had had to do things which were unpopular,' it had brought a measure of hostility against itself. Some Labour supporters were going about claiming that the Government was responsible for the slump. Asked if the Australian ' Government was responsible for the depression there, they said yes. Yet a" Labour Government was in power at the beginning of the slump, and had been forced to make cuts, impose a sales tax and prirriage duties, and take measures which were followed by New Zealand. The Labour Party had been in power for three years in Queensland, but the cuts made by the previous Government had not been restored because-the present Government found itself unable to do so. As recently as March the Deputy Premier.of Queensland had stated that the position had arisen as the result qf- conditions over which nobody had control. ' - .

"The National Government was not responsible for the slump," said Mr. Mazengarb. "It was brought about by conditions over which no *one in this country had any control." .