LABOUR IN POWER.

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 March 1911, Page 3

LABOUR IN POWER.

TELEGRAMS.

A VISITOR’S impressions:

.[by TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL TO THE STAB.] WELLINGTON, This Day. Mr W. J. Smith, of New Quay, Cornwall, is at present on a visit to New Zealand, having arrived here yesterday. At Homo he holds, amongst other important positions, those of president of the Mid-Cornwall Division of the Liberal Association and president of the New Quay Liberal Club, and the interest he takes in politics both at Home and abroad is an active one.

While in Australia, Mr North was impressed by the operations of the Labour Party there, and he expressed his opinions to a reporter. He had, he said, made a study of political economy for the most of his life, and, to cut things short, he was afraid that tho continuance of the present policy of the Labour Government in Australia would spell disaster. In the regular course of things, too, what was going on in Australia would affect New Zealand, for directly or indirectly the Dominion was part of the Commonwealth. Two or three years would see a crisis unless the Labour Party altered its programme. , The French had a proverb which meant “appetite comes with eating,” and it was one that was extremely applicable to the operations of Labour men in Australia. It had long been suggested that they were burdened with grandmotherly legislation in England, but in Australia the people were really oppressed with such legislation, which was far more in evidence than it was at Home. There was no freedom <!>f contract in Australia, and Mr North rigorously condemned laws which stipulated that a man worth 10s a day should get no more than a man worth 2s 6d a day. It was this state of affairs which had deterred him from investing capital in any portion of Australia, though numerous promising openings had been brought under his notice.

“The trouble in England,” said Mr North, “is want of security for' the land. In Australia the trouble is want of security for capital invested in land.”