TARANAKI

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 73, 23 September 1938, Page 10

TARANAKI

PREDOMINANTLY NATIONAL

\ t (By Telegraph.) ; (Special to the "Evening Post.")

NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day.

. TJaranaki, as the only wholly nonLabour province in the Dominion, is a fq-cal point of election interest. The Latk>ur Party is making unprecedented efforts to win over the last stronghold of. aajiti-Labour sympathy, but success is uH&'ikely, for the minds of the majority stye made up, and the province is still National in all electorates, with one possible exception. \ This is the Egmont electorate, where Mr. C A. Wilkinson (Independent) j opposes Mr. T. E. Trask (Labour), pvtt Mr. Wilkinson has National suppoipt. The Rev. F. L. Frost, Labouri candidcite for New Plymouth, stood at the last: election, but other Labour candidates,\'Mr. J. W. McMillan, Stratford, and Mr. Trask, are newcomers. At the .1935 elections Taranaki did not follow the Dominion-wide swing to Labpur. Tb||2 people of the province are, comparatively speaking, Conservative, probably: 1 because the dairy farming community predominates. This time there is t^reater apparent sympathy for Labour, v An indication of Labour's efforts to win over tjife province is given by the! visits of the Hon. R. Semple and the Hon. H. T; Armstrong, and the likely Visits of Mr. J- A. Lee and the Prime Minister. \ , Here, as elsewhere, social security is being made; the major election issue. On the whple, the people have been j disinclined lito comment on the plan. The general jppinion, including business opinion, favours the principle, but the question, "Opn the country stand it? is asked. \ ■ . Since Taramaki is a dairy farming

province, both sides are emphasising the guaranteed price issue. Most farmers have appreciated the ability of the Budget more or less accurately, but allegedly rising costs and the undenied difficulty of obtaining farm labour have tended to outweigh the advantages of a predictable income in their opinion, and has made them a little sceptical of Mr. Frost's assertion on Saturday that "the guaranteed price and the Government's marketing policy, both internal and external, have been the salvation of the people on the land." Clearly, the National Party is determined to make the alleged drift to Socialism an issue. Mr. Polson on Tuesday, using Mr. Lee's book on "Socialism in New Zealand" as his text, expounded at considerable length on the danger of drift. Mr. Lee, he said, should be thanked by the people of the Dominion for tearing down the curtain and showing up the Labour Party's true intentions, through which no section of the community had more to lose than the farmers. Once, and once only,, the spotlight fell on anti-Semitism, when Mr. W. G. Simpson, the Labour Party organiser in Taranaki, made an attack on the Press and Jewish financiers of the world, who, he claimed, used the newspapers as their tools. The election campaign is not yet thoroughly under way in New Plymouth. The Labour candidate, Mr. Frost, opened his campaign last Saturday at Waitara. The sitting member, Mr. S. G. Smith, opens his tonight. So far the National speakers have used mostly destructive tactics, while Labour speakers merely point to the Government's achievements. Between now and October 15 public opinion may be swayed a little one way or the other, and this in view of the Labour Party's strenuous efforts is more likely to be towards Labour than the reverse. However, the majority have already made up their minds, and at this stage a complete National victory in the province seems assured.