POLITICAL POINTS

Evening Star, Issue 23038, 17 August 1938, Page 8

POLITICAL POINTS

SAME TORY OPPOSITION [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August 16. The Minister of Finance was generally in serious vein explaining the Seem Security Bill to the House, but his revival of ancient criticisms, first of the old age pensions measure, was presented in an atmosphere of laughter. What was said, he asked, about the old age pension proposal when it .was first introduced in 1897. -The Opposition benches then declared that it would demoralise the people, but he claimed that he could prdve from figures that this legislation was the foundation for the amassing progress which had been made by New Zealand. The criticism of the Old Age Pensions Bill was amazingly like what was being said now. -A. leading Oppositionist declared in 1897 that the chief weakness was in its finance, and that it meant increased taxation when surplus Budgets warranted reduo* tion. “ And I have been reading this in the newspapers during the last fortnight,” added the Minister of Labour# Members: Who said this? The Minister: The Conservative Party, the Tory Party, the same people as those over there. Mr Parry: The same shellbacks. Mr Nash, quoting further from these early criticisms, stated that the Opposition described the proposals as thoroughly vicious, that the Premier was holding out hopes which he knew could never be realised, and that people would lose their self-respect. In the Upper House a member declared: “ Here we have one of these modern Socialistic theories.” (Loud laughter.); • • • * With the object of securing licensed hotel accommodation on the route of the new Kingston-Queenstown highway, Mr Bodkin has introduced a local Bill which seeks to enable the Central Otago Licensing Committee to order the removal of a publican’s license from one part of the area to a position on the new highway. The Bill is intended to apply to the Lower Shotover Hotel, and if passed it will operate till December 31, 1939, and no longer.