LABOUR LEADER’S NEW YEAR MESSAGE

Evening Star, Issue 20988, 30 December 1931, Page 7

LABOUR LEADER’S NEW YEAR MESSAGE

THE IMMEDIATE PROBLEM PENURY IN MIDST OF PLENTY [Pub United Fkesi Association.] WESTPORT, December 29. Tbe following New Year’s Message lias been, issued by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr H. E. Holland): —

“ May the New Year bring a full measure of prosperity and the joy of life to all citizens of New Zealand and to the people of other lands as well. The primary essentials to life and happiness are food, clothing, shelter, and common enjoyments. When the right to these is denied to any section of the people the whole nation suffers, and conditions arise such as are now being experienced—conditions which find no place in the historical records of twen-tieth-century civilisation. When the dawn of 1932 breaks for New Zealand it will find many thousands of people enduring unprecedented hardships in the midst of teeming plenty, and this is the immediate problem that must be faced, not only by the public representatives, but by every responsible citizen. Until it is solved our New Year greetings and good wishes will be likely to ring like sounding brass in a multitude of ears. “ We must set ourselves the task of overcoming the consequences of the present depression by the reabsorption in industry of those who are now in the ranks of the unemployed and the speediest restoration of the people’s purchasing power. We must write our laws, organise our energies, and order our economic relationships so that productive, and consequently remunerative, work will not be denied to those who are physically and mentally capable of performing it. In few countries, and least of all in this richlyproductive land, is there any sane reason why men, women, and little children should be compelled to endure a lack of food or any of the other necessaries of life. The fact that such a condition does prevail is a collective confession of failure in the past. The past, however, is beyond recall, but the New Year brings new opportunities to build well for the present and_ the future. To that work we must bring both the courage and the capacity to make the fundamental changes that are necessary. “ May the New Year bring prosperity and happiness. May it also bring ‘ God’s great gift of peace.’ I sincerely hope that unqualified success will crown the deliberations of the delegates to the Disarmament Conference which wifi , meet at Geneva in February, ending the international criminality of warfare and furnishing permanent guarantees of peace and tranquility to the peoples of the world.”