GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 124, 21 November 1935, Page 28

GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

PUBLIC INTEREST WELL MAINTAINED As the General Election campaign approaches the end public interest is increasing and large attendances have been the rule at practically all candidates' meetings. While the campaign in Wellington has been conducted quietly on the whole, there have been oneor two lively meetings, at which Government candidates have been subjected to considerable heckling. In the meantime, the leaders of the three parties are continuing their Dominion-wide campaign and are meeting with crowded audiences.

NAPIER TO GISBORNE

TAXATION BURDEN

COMPLETING THE LINE HOW LABOUR WILL DO IT During his speech at Gisborne recently the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. M. J.'Savage) answered a number of : questions addressed to him by

the Editor of the "Gisborne Times." One question related to the completion of the Napier-Gisborne line. It was as follows:

If it is part of Labour's plan, as Mr. Coleman declares in a pledge, to make the. work of finishing the Gisborne-Napier line one of Labour's first undertakings if placed in power how- comes it about that no mention of the fact appears in Labour's election manifesto (which was released for publication on Saturday last) and that.no mention is made therein of Labour's intention to raise any moneys by loan for any such purpose?

.Mr.-Savage replied: "My brief and definite reply is that the Editor should not sho.w such lack of confidence m a man .who is the town's Chief Magis-trate,-the district M.P., and a highlyesteemed member of the Labour Party. It is rather remarkable that Mr. Coleman's work should be doubted. I want to tety Mr. Editor that, if Labour is re-turned-to power, the Gisborne-Napier line will be completed. In addition I may say definitely that we are not going "to leave men and women-to sweat-;and starve in valleys along the line after the job is done, as they did when'the work was stopped. "Labour is not going to raise loans to complete the lines. I do not like the idea, because public credit has to be pledged. However, we will make use of public credit. Under present conditions, if we set out to complete the line, we would have to borrow £2,000,000. Mr. Lysnar says he will do so,•• but, in my opinion, he wont be there to do so. Labour will do things differently, for by raising a loan we would, for ail time, be paying interest. They could build by borrowing, no doubt, but Labour will not act that way.

"The question of completing the line will come before Parliament, and it will be resolved to do so. The cost will then be assessed, say, at £2,000,000, and credit will then be issued for that amount, using the same instruments of exchange ,as now. We would do the same as now would be necessary, but that there would be no tax on the public credit. I would sooner owe £5 to myself than to the Editor of the 'Glsborne Times.' There you are then and I don't think I have left out any detail except the colour of the notes."

INCOME FOE, ALL

WHEN LABOUR RULES ..

Mr. R. Semple, the Labour candidate for Wellington East, addressed three meetings yesterday. He spoke at the Miramar Oil Works at midday, at Seatoun Heights at 7.30 p.m., and at Breaker Bay at 8.30. The three meetings were all well attended. Mr. J. Tucker presided at Seatoun Heights and Mr. E. Gunn at Breaker Bay. Unanimous votes of thanks and confidence were carried.

Mr. Semple dealt with Labour's

monetary policy, the national insurance scheme, national health scheme, and a statutory minimum wage for all those who render service. Mr. Semple said: "You cannot have a happy and prosperous people unless everyone is given an income that will permit them to enjoy a standard of living that will enable them to meet their everyday commitments" and to make provision for the evening of their lives. Everyone is entitled to that, and they will get it when Labour rules." Mr. Semple dealt at length with the possibilities, and potentialities of our secondary industries. He referred to the flax industry, and said that he had endeavoured to get the. Government to establish a textile factory for the purpose of making wool-packs, cornsacks, etc., but the Government refused to do this. The project, was eventually taken up by a company; and today there was a modern textile factory at Foxton employing between two and three hundred young men and women who would otherwise have been idle. Mr. Semple read a letter he had received from the promoters of this company, thanking him for what he had done, and giving him the credit of having made it possible for them to have launched the venture. He said the wool-pack had been accepted by the Bradford wool buyers, and Australia was ready to take the surplus. "This industry," said the speaker, "promises to be one of the major industries in our country. This is something to my credit outside of my Parliamentary duties." Mr. Semple also dealt at length with our coal industry, and said that the scientific world had taught us the value of coal and shale from an oil and benzol producing point of view, and said that England was working wonders in this connection, employing thousands of men and women in this new industry, and supplying an ever-increasing quantity of their own crude and refined oil and benzol. Germany, France, and Australia were doing the same, and a huge plant was being erected in South Africa. "It is estimated," said Mr. Semple, "that they will be able to sell oil to the consumers from the South African plant, direct from the transformer, for 4d a gallon, New Zealand is the only country in the world not taking advantage of this wonderful discovery, and laboratory tests have proved that our shale and coal contain

FICTITIOUS SAVINGS

G.P.O. BANK DEPOSITS

a higher, oil content per ton than any other coal or shale in the world. While t the Government of the day refuses to exploit these rich resources to their full economic value, we are spending three and a half millions a year with foreign oil monopolies. One New Zealand company handling foreign oil made a profit, according to last year's balance-sheet, of 350 per cent., while distributors of oil found it difficult to carry on, and consumers of petrol were paying the highest petrol tax in the ■world. The Labour Party, if returned to power, will take immediate steps to develop this most essential industry."

OWNERSHIP OF LAND CASE AGAINST TARIFFS Discussing unemployment at Hataltai last evening, Mr. E. W. Nicolaus, Commonwealth Land- Party candidate for Wellington East, declared that root causes must be removed. The Government had not attempted to remove them, and they would n.ot be removed while heavy taxation continued. He received an attentive hearing, and was warmly applauded at ■ the conclusion of his address. Mr. R. Thomson presided over an attendance of about 100 electors.

The candidate said that unemployment was one of the world's fundamental difficulties. It was no use trying to side-step it, because through trying to avoid thinking about it the nations were making a host of people wno were nothing but a burden. New Zealand not only had idle men and women, but idle capital. By capital he meant all those things that should be used to produce the needs of the world. What was the solution? he asked. Some said cheap money, but there was plenty of cheap money. It could be got in America for 1 per cent. When men were idle, capital was idle; when men could not earn, capital could not earn, and when money was at a very low rate of interest poverty was stalking the land. What-was the obstacle that prevented labour and capital from working together? It was the denial of access to the raw materials of the earth which were being protected by the statesmen who put labour on the dole.

All the present politicians claimed that one country could not be prosperous without the others, but who was going to start first? If the fall in prices: overseas caused the trouble in New-Zealand-what caused the fall in England? If the fall came in the secondary industrial countries it must have been because the primary industries were not making sufficient demand for their goods, and that brought the cause back to New Zealand, where the farmers could not succeed while they were weighed down by the debt on their land.

Some claimed that land was the best investment, and if that were so business could not be a good investment. When a man invested money in land he could not invest it in his business. If he put down a lump sum for the right to occupy a plot o£ land he could not use that money in the business he conducted on the land, and if he paid interest on the money for the land that interest had to come out of the earnings of .the business.

All Government impositions on industry had to be recovered through the price of the goods; in other words, all taxation must increase the price of goods, but the only way that the masses could benefit by the advance of science was through cheaper goods. The Commonwealth Land Party claimed that the obvious thing to do was to take off all taxation on the principle that every man was entitled to every penny that he earned. During one year £28,000,000 had been taken out of industry, but when the C.L.P. said that that should not be collected people asked where the money ;to ■; pay for public • amenities was to come from. All of these amenities were directly reflected in the value of the land. The more of the amenities the higher the value of the land. Everything produced was paid for twice. The value of roads, trams, etc., was added to the value of pri-vately-owned land. When that land was purchased it was paid for, and then the purchaser had to go on paying over again through rates for the amenities that had increased the value of the land.

Mr. Nicolaus went on to discuss tariffs and the private ownership of land. The C.L.P. claimed that every man who occupied land should pay rent based on the unimproved value, which was the property of the people and not of the owner of the land, who had not made that value. All that would have to be paid was 5 per cent, on the unimproved value—no taxes of any kind because the land rent would pay for everything.

At the conclusion of the meeting the candidate was accorded ' a vote of thanks arid confidence.

Speaking at Eastbourne last night to about 250 electors, Mr. Waiter Nash, Labour candidate for Hutt, dealt particularly with savings bank deposits. The increases shown, he said, were largely due to the transfer of accounts from the trading banks to the Post Office Savings Bank because of the rate of interest paid there, and consequently did not represent a true increase in savings.

With the exception of 1924, said Mr. Nash, when the deposits exceeded withdrawals by £88,051, the withdrawals between 1921 and 1933 had been greater than the deposits. The credit of depositors had increased- by earned interest only and not by increased deposits. From September, 1934, to June, 1935, the fixed deposits in the trading banks had declined by £4,598,000, and during the year ended March 31, 1935, the deposits in the savings bank exceeded withdrawals by £3,232,975. There was obviously a transfer <}f funds and the reason was just as obvious. The trading banks were paying 1£ per cent, on short-dated deposits while the Savings Bank was paying 3 per cent, up to the first £SOO and 2J per cent, on the balance up to £2OOO. It consequently paid to transfer accounts to the Savings Bank.

Mr. Nash said that he was not criticising the Savings Bank for paying a higher rate than the trading bank-., but was refuting the misleading statements that had been made that the increase In Savings Bank deposits was due to increased savings. With 60 per cent, of the workers receiving under £3 a week and 55,568 unemployed re-', ceiving less than that, there was no margin from which the average worker could save. A unanimous vote of thanks and confidence was passed by the meeting, special reference being made to the service Mr. Nash had given to the civil [servants and the general public.