ADDRESS-IN-REPLY

Gisborne Times, Volume LV, Issue 6203, 7 October 1921, Page 5

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY

-LABOR’S AMENDMENT.MAJORITY OF LIBERALS VOTE WITH GOVERNMENT. WELLINGTON, Oct. 6. . The debate on the Adress-in-Reply was resumed Aby Mr Holland who traversed the financial position of the Dominion contending that if there was unemployment in the country it only went to .show that there was something wrong with the Government. Speaker after speaker in the debate had stated the remedy for the present position was a reduction of wages. This, he claimed, was fallacious, contending that what was .wrong was our system of taxation/ which did not hit the man who ought to be hit. He also desired to say the Labor party would resist by all forms allowed by the House any attempt to reduce -the wages of the worker in New Zealand. He then proceeded to discuss the coal position in the Dominion, censuring the Government for importing large quantities of foreign coal when there was an abundance of coal in the Dominion. He wanted to know if amongst our imported coal there was any German reparation coal. Mr Massey said there was none. Proceeding, Mr Holland demanded to know what was the price of imported coal. He understood the cost of Welsh coal was £4 10s per ton. Mr Massey: That is not so. Mr Holland: If that is not so, then we ought to be told what this coal did cost. He bad asked, for this information and it bad been denied him by the Government. Turning to the output of coal'in the Dominion, be said the output per man would, of course, vary from time to time. It does so in every country for many reasons. The changing nature of -the physical conditions underground have a material effect upon the output. Where .the mines are subaqueous, as at Huntly, the output is affected when the pillars are being taken out. When development work. lias to be undertaken, it will be decreased. It will be affected by the quality of the explosives used. Inferior explosives were q constant source of trouble jand danger during the war period. The output is also considerably affected by the methods of production adopted in order to ensure speedy profits. Mr Robert! Semple had pointed out very often j that before a mine is half developed the pillars are taken out with results disastrous for the mine itself. A board of inquiry set up by the •Government to go. into this matter j bad made a statement that half the j coal on the West Coast was lost as j a resmlt of this method of extrac- j tion. Thiring the 41 years covered by • the year book figures, the New Zea- i land output varied from 443 tons j per man underground in 1378 to 750 : tons in 1916, It had constantly ■ fluctuated. In ISBB it was 481 tons per man underground. In> the follow- j ing year (1889) it fell to 468 tons, j In 1908 it was 651 tons and 633 tons" in 1909. In 1918 it was 703 tons and 648 tons in 1919. Taking the periods expressed in decades of years, there bad been a steady increase in the yarly output per man underground. For example in 1878, 443 tons- per Snan; 1888, 481; 1898, 627 tons; 1908, 641 tons; 1918, 703 tons. Both the Minister of Agriculture and the member for Kaiapoi- would make it appear that during the war the minors held New Zealand up in the matter of coal supply. The answer to that slander was given in the figures officially furnished by the Government itself. The four principal war years were all record vears of coal production per man. Out of the 41 years of recorded output, there had' been only five years in which the output per man underground had either reached or exceeded 700 tons. Or. e of those five years was 1911 when the output was 706 tons per r. ana Dominion record up to that time. The other four years in which the output was above 700 tons per man were 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918. The figures fir these years were 711, 750, 715, and 703 tons respectively. In 1916 the output was not only a Dominion record per man; it was also a world record. In 1917 the output was the Dominion’s second best record. That of 1915 was the third best and that of 1918 the fifth best. The 1911 record was the fourth best. Comparing the five years’ period immediately, prior to the war. J 910-14 with the five war years (1915-19) it would he found that while the output was 650 tons per man underground for the pre-war period, it was over 705 tons per- man for the war period. What, he asked, have the enemies of Labor to say to these figures? He suggested that the Minister for Agriculture and the member for Kaiapoi should compare the figures affecting wheat production with the coal returns and they would see that between the first year of the war (1914-15) and the - year 1919-20 there was a decrease of 89,989 acres in the wheat area under cultivation and a decrease of 2,054,402 bushels in the aggregate output. As between 1917-18. the year whose coal' figures the member for Kaiapoi uses, and 1919-20, ther§ is a wheat area, decrease of 141,367 and a decrease of 2.247,597 bushels in the aggregate output. Taking the war time the_ record year for acreage under cultivation (1915-16), we find that there is between it and 1919-20 an area decrease of 189,596 acres_ and a de-‘ crease in output of 2,549,426 bushels. The output of wheat per acre varied just as the output of coal per man varied and for reasons easily understandable. While 1916-16 was the record year of the last decade for aggregate output, it gave the lowest yield per acre—2l.s9 bushels, and 1919-20 with the lowest acreage and lowest aggregate yield gave the second highest yield per 'acre for the period named—32.66 bushels. There had/ been the same acreage, under cultivation in 1919-20 as in 1915-16 and, had the yield per acre been the same throughout, we should not have needed export wheat at all. Our output for last year would have been over 10,750,000 bushels. As it was, we imported 1,905,000 bushels in 1920 while, during the seven years 1914-20, our imports exceeded 6,027,600 bushels. During one of the war years, certain Canterbury wheat growers met and deliberately carried a resolution to the effect that nothing less than 7s a bushel would suit them and also declared that, unless the price was increased, they would not grow wheat. Coming hack to the miner, he complained of the treatment of these men in New Zealand. To-day .everyone of these men took his life in ’his hands every time he went down the mine. Yet their lives were not adequately protected and for this he blamed the Government which had permitted the registration of a bogus union, which resulted in the Huntly disaster. For these and other reasons 'stated therein, he moved the following amendment: —

“We feel it, however, to be our duty to submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's Ministers do hot possess the confidence ot this House for the reasons hereinafter given, viz. Ul) their-failure to bring down a financial policy -necessary to the proper maintenance of public services and economic progress of- the Dominion (2) their failure to deal with the problem of unemployed on the basis of right to work or adequate maintenance (3) their failure to' provide adequate housing for the people -(4) their wasteful policy of heavy coai importations instead of local production and (5) their refusal to furnish information to deal with the cost of imported coal.”

The amendment was seconded by i Mr Bartram, who denounced the J suggestion that workers’ wages , should be reduced as a solution of the present financial stringency. For the existing unemployment the Government was'largely responsible. ! The Government .was not only bring- ;. ing out people for whom there was no work, but the Government was criminally responsible for misrepresenting the ,position to> these people' before they came. The policy underlying the Government’s- immigration scheme was to get cheap labor. It was another phase of the policy to reduce wages. This was one of the chief reasons why he had no faith in the ability, of the Government to look after this country’s affairs. Mr*. Rotter' deprecated the. tendency on the part of the public to rely on' the Government for every need, for this tendency .sapped the independence of the people. Discussing the unemployment position, he admitted that there were some deserving cases, but be contended that the bulk of arbitration was pure political propaganda. Discussing the coal position, he maintained that the miners’ recent demands , had been made with the sole object of reducing the output. Bank to bank simply meant a shortened day and shortened hours meant) a reduced output. The miners, however, had been hoist with their own petard. They had gone slow when they thought they could embarrass the Government, hut the importations of coal now robbed them of the advantage they possessed and they were no longer in a position to. strike or go slow and they were no longer able to dictate to the people-, at large. Regarding, soldiers’ pensions he pleaded for sympathetic consideration being given each case. At the same" time ho regretted the tendency of the Returned Soldiers’ Association to make political capital out of the soldiers’ needs. He warned the people against the pessimist who went about flic country preaching that the Massey Government, was responsible for the Dresent financial stringency. Mr Howard said the present session would count in the history of the Dominion as one of the most important ever held, firstly because the House and the country would have to listen to a momentous statement from the Premier concerning Imperial affairs and, secondly, because they would have to consider the tariff'auestion. When we. find industries overseas, over capitalised, offering large quantities of cheap goods, we would have local industries asking for protection and rightly .so. The Labor party would not blindly follow tlie Premier in Imperial matters unless all the cards were laid on the table. When Labor came into power fthey would repudiate any undisclosed propositions. In his opinion the slump was due to pure conspiracy on the part of a few people. What was needed to cure the present ills was an gconomic judiciary to regulate the credit of the country, because the country was in the grip of a few financiers who were able to say when our people be employed or otherwise by inflation or deflation of the currency. Labor said we should not he strangled by a money octupus whose body, was • in another country and its tentacles in this. Mr Glenn said he had been strucx .by the temperate tone of the speeches delivered by the members of the Labor party. This convinced him that they were out to help the country in its present difficulties. This, however, was not the case with all leaders of Labor. Officials of the Shearers’ union was going about stopping men from going to work when men wanted to work. The sheep farmers were “up'against it.” They wanted their work done and were prepared to pay the Arbitration Court rates. _ 1 Mr Sullivan said that, after mak- t ing his pathetic appeal on behalf j of sheepfarmers, the last speaker ; should be able to appreciate the posi- ’ tion of the unemployed worker, he- 1 cause, unlike the sheep farmer, who had piled up huge profits during the war years, the worker had been “up against it'’ all the time. Mr Seddon’s death was a disaster resulting in the Government of the country into the hands of a party who cared j nothing for the interests of the ] people and consequently we got into • difficulties arising largely out of the financial policy of the Government, j He suggested a levy on capital which | would reach those people who made large . profits during the war period. | . A division was then called for on ! Mr Holland’s amendment, which was defeated by 40 to 9. I The following supported the amendment: Messrs. Holland, Sullivan, McCombs, Bartram, Howard, Horn, Poland, Witty, Atmore. j The following are the pairs:—For the amendment, Messrs Savage, Par- j rv. Fraser, McCallum; against the amendment, Messrs. Craigie, Hudson, Uru, Anderson. Continuing the debate, Mr. Statliam said he had made it clear that he had. lost confidence in the Government, but he had not transferred his confidence to the Liberals or official Labor party. Therefore he had not taken part in the debate on the amendment of either party. He deprecated the proposals to reduce wages as a means of restoring the j financial equilibrium and to remove unemployment. He did not agree , with members of the Government who said that it was not their business to poke their noses into it. New Zealand wanted more population, but he did not think people should he brought here if there was neither work nor housing for them. The Public Service Commissioners were not justifying their existence. The present slump was largely due to the banking system. A State bank was needed. . Taxation was at present crippling industries. The country would have to come to the rescue of distressed soldiers. He condemned the Govel’nment’s housing seneme, which was giving unsatisfactory results at an enormous cost. _ Mr Veitch adversely criticised the universal superannuation! scheme advocated by the new Progressive party as being financially unsound. Mr Dixon then replied, in the course of which he maintained that the reduction of wages was the best solution of the country’s financial difficulties. _ The address was then agreed to and the House rose. —P.A.