ELECTION PLEDGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 10

ELECTION PLEDGES

QUESTION IN HOUSE POSITION OF FARMERS When the Mortgagors and Lessees Rehabilitation Bill was being considered in Committee by the House of Representatives yesterday, Mr. W. J. Poison (National, Stratford) said that during the election campaign the members who were now on the Government benches declared that if returned to power they would give to the farmer something much better than was offered by the then. Government. The Prime Minister had talked again and again about restoring to the farmer the equity of his land. Where was it in the Bill? The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage): You heard a good speech.

Mr. Poison said the Government was'not standing up to its promises. The Bill disclosed the real i position. There was a lot, of camouflage about giving powers to the commissions to do what they liked, but there were no instructions to give to the farmer the: equity he had lost. Mr. W. A. Bodkin (National, Central Otago) said «he was rather concerned when he heard the Minister of Finance say that directions were to be given to the commissions. They were judicial bodies and if they were to receive directions from the Government all he could say.was, "God help New Zealand." If the Minister would say that there were to be fair and impartial tribunals to interpret the law it would be something to inspire confidence.

Mr. H. G. Dickie (National, Patea) referred to the critics of the other side of the House when the last Government was in office. They had said the Government was putting ' the farmer in a strait-jacket, but under the new legislation the farmer was in no better position than formerly.