"ON THE RUN"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 24

"ON THE RUN"

LABOUR GOVERNMENT

PROFESSOR ALGIE'S ADDRESS

THE ELECTION ISSUE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, September 28,

The immediate effect of Socialism in every modern State which had adopted it was the abolition of representative democratic government, said Professor R. M. Algie, organiser of the Auckland Provincial Freedom Association, during an address in the Riccarton Town Hall today. Professor Algie quoted the experience of Russia, Germany, and Italy, and declared that statements of members 'of.-the NewZealand Government, both written and spoken, indicated that Socialism was the objective of the Labour Party.

Professor Algie was given an enthusiastic reception by an audience of more than 250.

Professor Algie said the issue, at the coming election was fundamental, as it was nothing more or less than the issue'of: freedom.

"Ministers of the Crown keep telling us that this 'is not the issue," said Professor Algie. "They insist that New Zealand is freer today than it has ever been before and that nothing the Government has done has tended to take away freedom. If that were true there would be no need for me to be talking of freedom and you would not consider it necessary to come to hear me.

"I have never known of any Government in office to be so completely on the run. The whole Ministry is so obviously in a state of frenzy. If this Government has done as much as it says it has, why is it necessary to devote so much time to the criticism of its predecessors? If it had done any good that good would cry out aloud. Have you ever heard of so many Ministers dashing about to all parts of the country? In Waimate, for instance, they have had every Minister of the Crown there except Mr. Nash, and he is going next week. I would put this down to absolute frenzy and panic." MR. LEE'S BOOK. It was quite incorrect for the Government to claim that the issue at the coming election was not Socialism. Ministers and other members of the party had consistently said it was and consistently described themselves as Socialists. Mr. J. A. Lee in a book he recently published had set out the Socialistic objective of the party in a way which by comparison made the utterances of the Prime Minister on the subject simply a weighty cloud of obscurity. Mr. Lee must be admired for his directness when he stated in his book that he believed that there. was no alternative to Socialism in New Zea-. land. New Zealand was now on the high road to Socialism, Mr. Lee said, and unless the country continued to build Socialism it would lie in ruins. "The opinion of Mr. Lee counts for the very simple reason that he just missed Cabinet rank and in fact controls a department as powerful and influential as if it were a Ministry of its own," said Professor Algie. "We know that he is the leader of the left wing of the Labour Party and that if necessary the mantle of the leadership of the whole party might fall on his shoulders. Mr. Lee says plainly that there is no alternative to Socialism. Yet the Prime Minister goes about saying that the issue is the guaranteed price and social security. -The issue is dominantly what you will be asked to pay for the benefits being offered you. The price is the forfeiture of democracy and the establishment of a complete socialistic State."

Under a socialistic State where private industries were crushed out of existence, taxes would have to come from the profits of State undertakings, and from salaries and wages, but as State undertakings were not necessarily required to make profits, the weight of taxation would fall on salaries and wages. "THfE SOVIET SYSTEM." "Mr. Lee' realises that the point is terribly serious," said Professor Algie. "In his book he gives a piece of tabloid medicine that trade unionists will not swallow. He says that trade unionists must adoot a new philosophy." i In the socialist State obstruction was i all right when it was used against the capitalist employer, but when the State was the employer, a new point of view would be required from trades unions, and they were responsible through their unions to the State for an increase of production. "That is simply the Soviet system," said Professor Algie. "The reaction of unionists is not what Mr. Lee hopes it will be. I know many trades unionists who rightly regard their union as simply more or less a guild through which they can bargain collectively. They realise that once their union becomes an instrument to speed up production for the Government it becomes nothing less than communistic and an instrument of the Government."

"The Prime Minister and members of the Ministry had said many times that there was no intention of taking over control of the banking system, but here again Mr. ..Lee in his book made the issue plain. He said that it was necessary to socialise the whole banking system or the country would be Socialist in name only. Actually the Reserve Bank Amendment Act the ; first. Act passed by the Labour Government, gave the Minister of Finance control of the Reserve Bank, and any extension of the banking control must therefore extend to the private banks.