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Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 123, 20 November 1935, Page 18

SENSE OF CONFIDENCE

Mr. P. M. Butler, the Labour can* didate for the Wellington Suburbs seat, addressed a full hall in the Kelbum Kiosk last evening. Mr. R. H. Hooper presided and introduced Mr. Butler as a Labour worker who had given very good service, particularly as a member of the City Council. , .- Mr. Butler said that the large audiences which had gathered at meetings addressed by Labour candidates was the best possible proof of the fact that the people of Wellington, and New Zealand as a whole, were awakened to the necessity o£ taking a keener and more real interest in politics for the remedying of the state of affairs lass*-1 ly brought about by the four yearr" Administration of the Coalition Government. For his opponent, said Mr. Butler, he had the very highest regard. He did not propose* at any stage of the campaign to indulge-in any personalities, and if he criticised his opponent it was his policy, the policy of the Coalition Government. that he criticised. Mr. Butler recallett the election slogans which had been adopted by Coalition candidates in 1931, and which had misled the majority of electors into giving the Government a blank cheque. Today they knew that this had bought something that they did not want. The same old slogans: Protect your saving bank, protect your homes, keep your mass in the job, and so on, were brought forward again, but electors would not again accept them blindly, as they did in 1931, for in four years they had learned how empty the promises were and how, in the name of economy, the order brought about by the Coalition Government had forced thousands to draw their savings from the Post Ofnce, had taken from more thousands the equities in their homes, and resulted m the appalling misery of unemployment. Notwithstanding definite promises made by the Hon. A. Hamilton at Timaru, by the Rt Hon. J. G Coates at Auckland, and the Rt Hon! G. W. Forbes at Christchurch, that pensions of soldiers and widows would not be reduced those reductions were made. Under the Coalition Government some of the finest humanitariaa legislation ever written had been slash, ed to pieces.

The Labour Party had two main principles upon which all the elements of their policy were based. To ensure to all the necessaries of life and to restore to the people of New Zealand a sense of confidence in their country

Mr. Butler was accorded a vote of thanks and confidence by a very large majority. a*s