MORE FREEDOM TODAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 76, 27 September 1938, Page 18

MORE FREEDOM TODAY

j PEOPLE OF N.Z. MR. SEMPLE'S CONTENTIONS (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, September 26. There was uproar in the Papanui Town Hall this evening, when, at the conclusion of an address by the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple), the Mayor, Mr. R. M. MacFarlane, who presided, described the presence of a number of National Party supporters in the audience as an organised attempt to disrupt the meeting. There was a certain amount of booing from this section of the audience as a counter to Mr. Semple's supporters' cheers, but the meeting was no more lively than is normal at a political meeting where any considerable body of opposition is present. Mr. Semple was given in the main an attentive and enthusiastic hearing and the applause with which the vote of thanks was carried at the conclusion came from the whole audience. The hall contained about 800 persons, and. there were about 200 outside. "I want to speak tonight on the 'back to freedom' campaign of the National Party," said Mr. Semple. "I want to ask you what freedom the Labour Party has taken away? I say that every man and woman in this country has more freedom now than was enjoyed three years ago." The National Party had no right to talk of a : return of the liberty of the subject, said Mr. Semple. During their last term as Government ■ the Nationalists had lengthened the life of Parliament without consulting the electors.' This was completely against the Constitution, "which specifically laid it down that Parliament should have a life of three years and no more. They paid themselves during this time out of the public purse without a mandate from the country, but before they went out of power they legalised their action by legislation. The first action of the Labour Government was to restore to the people their freedom to say whether or not a Government should be allowed to carry on. . " The freedom of public servants to take any part in politics had been removed by the last Government and the right of public servants to meet together in their organisations was removed. No public servant could stand for Parliament without losing his job.' For the first time in the history of the country, the Labour Government had restored in full the political rights of public servants and allowed them a political conscience. The Police Force was denied the right to form an organisation of its own and the right to meet to discuss its position. This freedom the Labour Government had restored. Freedom of workers was removed when the Arbitration. Court was forced to tear up every industrial agreement then in force and workers were prevented from obtaining new agreements without the consent of their employers. "SLAVE CAMPS" OF THE PAST. Under, the last Government the position of youth under 20 years of age was hopeless. There was no provision for the assistance of young New Zealanders until they were 20, and then they were herded into slave camps at 10s a week. "Before I was three months in office I tore all these slave camps down," said Mr. Semple. "With their talk about freedom, the Nationalists mean freedom of the minority to exploit the great majority. In explaining the Government's activities on behalf of road safety, Mr. Semple said that the exceedingly j rapid development of motor transport had brought new problems, not only in New Zealand but also throughout the world. The problems had only one solution, and that was complete reconstruction of all the main roads of the Dominion in an attempt to keep down the terrible mortality of the roads. "The Government has taken over the main roads from the counties and has saved the counties £ 120,000 a year," said Mr. Semple. ; The Government has built these roads not for a year or ten years, but for a century. In building roads we have got to visualise what traffic requirements are to be in the future and anticipate them. We are establishing the Roman principle of planning roads that will last for centuries." Mr. Semple described the simplification of the traffic laws of the country and the efforts made to make the roads safer for the public. The result was that New Zealand now had the lowest mortality rate for every 10,000 vehicles in the world, the figure being 8.8. For this, credit had to be given to the splendid co-opera-tion he had received from every section of the public. Mr. Semple concluded by describing the expenditure on public works that had been saved through the use of machinery, and said that the completion of railways that had been undertaken had been necessary to save something of the money that had been spent on them before the Labour Government came into power.