WELLINGTON SOUTH

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 59, 7 September 1938, Page 5

WELLINGTON SOUTH

MR. MCREEN'S MEET-

ING

ADDRESS BY MR. LEE

The electors of Wellington South were addressed last evening by Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P., Parliamentary Undersecretary for Housing, and Mr. R. McKeen, M.P. for Wellington South, and Labour candidate for the seat. Mr. J. Thomson, chairman of the Island Bay branch of the Labour Party, presided, and the meeting, which was held in St. Hilda's Hall, was attended by about 400 electors. "This is the open shooting season for politicians and singularly enough it coincides with the closing of the duckshooting season," remarked Mr. Lee in opening his address. He said that the Labour Government, by placing Parliament on the air,, had made it the people's Parliament, and there was today a greater interest in political questions than ever before. The issue today was National Party freedom versus Labour Party freedom. On the one hand there was the National Party anxious for the free play of economic forces that would enslave human beings; and, on the other hand, there was the Labour Government anxious to enslave material conditions so that the people might be free. HOUSING PROBLEM. Dealing with the Labour Government's housing scheme, Mr. Lee said that his Department ■ had laid more foundations' than any other in New Zealand, and their names were not on a single foundation-stone. When the Labour Government came into office it faced a great housing problem, the previous Government having completely wrecked the policy of building by private ownership. The so-called slump was not an act of God. The Government of the day, instead 6t taking the advice of Labour and making a guaranteed price, had said as soon as prices overseas began to fall: "The farmer is down; let's knock everyone down to his level." As a result the index figure for production fell from IOJKto 95. In the first year of the Labour Government's tenure of office the index figure rose from 103 to 121 and that marked the greatest increase in the production of real wealth in New Zealand's history. The Coatds-Forbes-Hamilton Government, said Mr. Lee, had reduced State Advances lending, and in one year when there were 100,000 unemployed had built only eleven houses with State]

money. If the National Party were returned to power, it would solve the housing shortage without building a single house by cutting wages so that the people would not. be able to pay the rent. "Money has been advanced through the State Advances Department to four or five times the extent each week that our critics advanced in a year," said Mr* Lee. Unfortuntely, he added, it was not possible to dispatch houses by telegraphic transfer. No matter how much the industry was mobilised, j it could not overnight turn unskilled into skilled workmen, nor overnight solve the housing shortage. The number of apprentices as a result of the depression had fallen from 10,000 to about 3000, but now there were more than 8000 apprentices and next year the total would be in excess of 10,000. Mrs. Knox Gilmer was saying that a move should be made to abolish slums, but she wanted State houses to be built for about £450, which would be perpetuating the very slums she said she was so anxious to eradicate. "I suppose Mrs. Knox Gilmer has got to become house-conscious for once in her life for the sake of trying to win a vote or two," added Mr. Lee. "They quote the 'Adelaide' house, but in the 'Adelaide' house the Vashhouse was not walled in and there was no hot-water system. We've improved on that house out of sight. It's all very well for people like Mrs. Knox Gilmer to take an interest in housing for four weeks during an election time, but we are. passing legislation to give a married man with five of,a.family 12s a week towards his rent as well as free medical attention^rthafs something you don't hear the National Party talking about." A vote of thanks, proposed by Mr. E. B. Newton, was carried unanimously. POLICY PUT INTO EFFECT. , When he appeared before the electors three years ago, said Mr. McKeen, the Labour Party had pledged itself to implement! its policy as enunciated by the Prime Minister. Every item of that policy had been implemented except the Social Security Act, and in a few days that, too, would become the law of the land. Referring to the happiness and contentment of the people how as compared with the period before the Labour Government assumed office, Mr.. McKeen said that the Government was asking for a further mandate to carry through its policy. "Innuendoes, falsehoods, whispered slander, and forecasts of slumps and depressions— these are the weapons that will be used against us," he said, "but I am .confident that they will not succeed and that the Government will be returned stronger than ever before."

A vote of thanks and renewed confidence in Mr. McKeen was proposed by Mr. R. Corry, and carried unanimously.