PINK OR RED?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10732, 1 November 1928, Page 5

PINK OR RED?

ME, COLEMAN AT'CITY HALL. LABOR’S NEW PLATFORM OUT* ' ' -/ - LINED. .

DENIAL FARMS WILL BE CQN- ' , . • FISCATEO.

STATE BANK ADVOCATED.

The Labor candidate for the Gisborne seat, Mr, I). JY. Coleman, delivered an interesting policy, address to an of acdut 180 in' the' City Hall last night. The proceedings were a very quiet, the audidnce listening to his discourse with much attention, and, at the conclusion, he was, accorded, a hearty vote of thanks. > ,The dephty-Mayor, ; Mr. J. Blair, presided and, introducing the. candidate, he facetiously, amidst laughter, apologised for the absence of the Mayor in his official capacity. Mr. Coleman, he said, was too well-known tor him to require any elaborate introduction, and he appealed to the audience to give him a fair and impartial hearing.

•In opening, Mr. Coleman announced that he stood as the selected official Labor candidate, to contest the Gisborne seat. He offered no. apologies for his stand. For many years he had taken ah active part and interest in the Labor Party, because he believed that its platform stood for the benefit or the whole of the people of the Dominion, instead, of a privileged few. Because he believed in the party, he was a member of it, and lie would not be if he could not conscientiously subscribe to its principles. However, ho fully enodrsed and supported the party’s polioy. -•> The Labor Party, he declared, had a definite printed platform and policy for which they were alone responsible. The party was not responsible for the platform which opponents or ' the press advanced and suggested the party advocated. The party was constitutional and was acting along constitutional lines. The people had been informed that the Labor Party was unconstitutional, comprised extremists, and were a lot of Bolshies, but lie impressed on them that the party was growing and the people were beginning to understand the party and its policy. TILT AT ME. CLAYTON. . Mr. Coleman said that he had noticed that Mr. Clayton seemed guite offended that a Labor candidate should have the audacity to stand'for the Gisborne , seat, suggesting that the speaker hadn’t a possible chance of being successful. He denied, in the first place, Mr. Clayton’s right to suggest who should stand and, secondly, ho thought ’Labor would get in. (Applause.) Apart from that, if the Labor Party had always acted on advice such as that of Mr. Clayton’s, bow, many Labor members would there be in the House in New Zealand, Australia or at Home? lie asked. Labor had taken no notice of such advice, and he. was contesting the seat because he had something to stand for, and, when the figures wer-e hoisted, Mr. Clayton would have reason to regret that Labor had entered the field.'(Applause.). ' There were only two real parties in the contest, Labor and Eeform, he proceeded, ■ these being the Government and the Official Opposition. “The Labor Party are tho challengers for the Treasury Benches, and the fact that we occupy this position is Causing no little concern to the antiLabor forces.” LABOR’S PALE LAND POLICY. .Mr. Coleman said he purposed dealing with some- of the planks of tho platform of the ’Labor Party, which they would endeavor to place _in operation immediately on ..securing the Treasury Benches. Asi- in all countries, the land question occupied foremost place, and so it did in Labor’s platform, because it was recognised to be of prime importance. S’ome machinery clauses would first be required before Labor could place its land policy on the statute book. It’s policy, was to help people in to the land. „ He knew the farmers had been told that, if Labor became the / Government, they would * lose their farms, and that the properties would be taken from them, but he wondered what; Labor would, do with these farms’. The party desired to put people on the land to work it and not to have farmers walking off their properties. In the past four years, he. declared, close on 4,C00 farmers had filed tlrtir petitions in bankruptcy, and among these he did not include: the thousands of working farmers who had been compelled - to walk off their properties penniless, hiving invested all their funds in the land initially. The farmers lost their farms all right, but Labor was not in power, so it could not be responsible. HOW SETTLEMENT WOULD BE • PROMOTED.

'The Labor Party would,: said Mr. Coleman, endeavor to promote closer settlement by the purchase of large blocks, not by confiscation, but by purchase by ’negotiation, reserving the right, if the former course failed, to exercise the clauses now enacted for compulsory purchase of large holdings. The present Government had failed dismally in promoting closer settlement. True the Government had purchased land, but at too high prices on which it was impossible for working farmers to make a living. The Government had bought Te tVera for £64,000 from Messrs. Chappell and Field, the latter of whom, ho believed, was a relative of Mr. Lysnar. The owners had had the property mortgaged to the Public Trust for £6 an acre. The Government, was asking 9s per acre per week and los per acre per week for the homestead block of that property. What working farmer could take up that land and make a living off it at that price? he asked. The result was that not a solitary settler had taken up that land or portion of it. Labor, he asserted, would frame a polity to help the. working farmer; it was nofc concerned with the speculator or the farmer who ‘ ‘farmed’ ’ the farmer, but with the farmer who would farm the farm. One of the conditions would be occupation and use of the land. Because Labor imposed those conditions opponents ridiculed the policy as “usehold.” He claimed that the land:was there to be used and rendered productive. The party proposed to make it unprofitable to hold idle land by increased land taxation on first and second-class holdings believing that this would serve to stimulate closer’! settlement'. ; '‘IS AGGREGATION-. GOING ON? It was - suggested by Mr. Lysnar that there was no land aggregation, but he contended one had only to examine the figures in the A ear Book to see that aggregation was going on and was increasing m the Dominion. Labor, believed that the Reform Government was responsible for thousands of farmers being compelled te , -walk off their , holdings as they _ were tumble- to make a living through the conditions prevailing. He stated that there were 14,000 less employed • m country occupations in 1926. than in 1Q22. The Government declared that their policy was freehold, but it had ■ h'eonk<jonvinoingly demonstrated at •was -m‘ortgage-hold. How many farm- ■ er.s 'iii New Zealand had freehold? What .waa the use of -freehold! if the ’ stock - firms and the banks held the title-deeds?/ , !, , .■f State facilities for the transfer of land-would also bo granted by Labor •'placed in power, - said Air. Goleman. The cost of land, transfers was far too heavy /hetelaimed, and to support his contention: lie cited a property of 120 acres - which had changed hands six times in two years, ;the transfer fees totalling £2.197 10s, or £lß6s 3d Pqi* acre,, wliich wits, •of oourtse. lo£Ld--1 ed-oii to the original price of £3O an /a&e/V He claimed that Labor’s policy .wonld'idispeaise with such heavy trams* ’* : .* ••• - •*: . • ‘ : * = .; ...... ;

fer costs,.: which even the farmeis were beginning to realise were excessive.- , •. NATIONAL FINANCES. Discussing finance and v the heavy interest charge on the public debt, totalling £12,500,000 annually. Mr. Coleman said that Labor would endeavor, to arrange as far as possible that loans t<e obtained from State Institutions. He .-referred to the splendid work done in the past by the Public Trust, the Post Office Savings .Bank, and the. State Adanves Depart--meats; which -had-been the meaAs of great economies, hut these institutions we're now iff danger as the big financial organisations were out to .smafeh them. Labor would see they were preserved,. He declared that the Govermnent had passed; legislation in Ole interests of the large financial institutions, which had a fairly good hold on the Govermnent. and to a large extent dictated the Government’s financial policy. Through one action £3,000,000 of deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank had been transferred to private institutions. That would continue if the present Government remained in power. PLEA FOR A STATE BANK.

Mr. Coleman asserted that Labor stood four-square for a. State Bank. To hear and read the views of some aiiti-Laborites, the daily press, and soma Cabinet Ministers, one would till ink that a State bank was as yet an experiment,- it was now an . accomplished fact, for proof of which people needi go no further than the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Just as it was necessary for Labor to be in power before State banking could be introduced into Australia, so it would be necessary for Labor to be on the Treasury Benches in New Zealand before the scheme would be put into operation. The Bank of New Zealand, although held up as being a State hank, was nothing more than a private concern. True the Government had come to its rescue in a time of financial crisis and enabled the institution to keep its doors open, and true the Government had four nominees on the directorate- of six, but it was equally true the shareholders got the profits. (Applause.) It was hardly likely that the- Government would favor a State; bank, seeding Sir Francis Bell, tho most intellectual of the Ministry, in fact its brains, was one of the largest shareholders in the Bank of New Zealand. He noticed that the Hon. K. S. Williams had dropped a block of wisdom on Labor’s State banking proposal liy asking where the money would he obtained. Where did the private banks or the Commonwealth Bank of Australia obtain their money? asked the speaker, who contended that a State bank would he in the interests of the people. The daily press and the big money-bags were opposed to the project, 'but there were thousands of anti-Laborites who favored State banking and who would not see their wishes fulfilled until Labor liedd the Treasury Benches. The proposal was for a. State bank, witli a. special department for agricultural credits, and having the sole right of note issue. PENSIONS INADEQUATE

Another plank "in Labor’s platform dealt with pensions, which would be one Of the first acts of social legislation that Labor would have to face on being placed in power. Pensions were inadequate and do not in any degree offer old people a fair standard of living. Pensions should be sufficient to maintain the recipients at a reasonable standard" of living, Labor would increase the family allowncc. The had proposed an allowance of 7s 6d for married men with large families which, until Labor protested, they proposed to raise by deducting it from single men’s wages. The result was that the allowance was taken from the Consolidated Fund. Mr Coates stated that it would cost £250,000 the Minister of Labor £260,000, and tho Minister of Finance £272,584. But instead of paying 7s 6d weekly a head to tho mother with a family of over four, the Government gave only 2s a week, the allowance being so hedged round with conditions that few were able to get it. There were a few people who had applied for the allowance and had been turned down. Thus instead of £272,584 being paid out only £37,515 had been granted. Labor, on the other hand, would make sure that mothers with large families would receive the benefits of the family allowance. Again, the pensions system penalised recipients who endeavoured to improve their position by undertaking a little work, the pension being reduced. according to the amount earned and there being no inducement to pensioners to improve their lot. He claimed that there should also be a reciprocal agreement made with other British countries for the payment of pensions to people resident there. At present there were a number or people in New Zealand debarred from obtaining much needed assistance through lack of residential qualifications and other conditions. Such people had to live and, if they could not obtain pensions, there was no other course open to _ them than to apply for charitable aid and beg for assistance. IMMIGRATION PROBLEM . Dealing with immigration, Mr Coleman said that Labor realised that the Dominion was suitable for the introduction of new people, but he contended that, the Government had not legislated in the interests of the people, but of the financial institutions. The present policy of immigration was anything but a benefit to the Dominion. He declared that the decrease of 14,000 employed in the country districts between 1922-26 meant that numbers had rushed info the towns to compete for jobs, the housing conditions were such as they could not accommodate the people and on the Government Statistician’s figures there were 23,000 overcrowded dwellings in which there were 164,198 persons, so that one in seven was living in dangerous: .and insanitary .conditions. The report of the Board of Health .which examined the housing conditions of the Dominion bore out the statistics. Despite these conditions, the Government had brought out 84,820 immigrants, or three times as many as Canada and Australia had taken. Labor had warned the Government against a continuance of its immigration policy in view of the housing conditions and the unemployment, hut no heed was taken to the warning. On no occasion had he read of Mr Lysnar’s having protested against 1 the Government’s migration policy but, instead, had attacked the Labor party and urged the Government to go ahead., A ,voice: “It meant cheap labor. (Laughter.) Mr Coleman stated that the 84,000 immigrants were dumped into the cities to swell the large army of unemployed. The Government statistics showed that £3,117,409 had been spent on immigration and it was styled as a State asset. “We are bringing people into New Zealand under a misrepresentation”, declared Mr Coleman, who said' that, in many cases, the immigrants were not "long in the country before they have to apply for charitable relief. In most cases, the people had been tricked and misled, and many cases had come under his notice, where good homes had been broken up by parents anxious to give their children a chance, having received glowing reports of farms waiting to he taken up, bungalow cottages, etc., and, on arrival, found they had no .homO' and'-no .job.".ln > this, connection he referred to the booklet ‘ ‘NI. Z, the Brighter Britain of the South” printed and distributed by the Government Publicity Department and from which he quoted several statements, e.g., that -there were large arid suitable areas of Crown lands, subdivided: and roaded 'always avail-

able”,' the promise of wages of £1 10s per week to!'public schoolboy immigrants for work on farms, and the suggestion that the farmer and the boy shared the profit® between them in agreed proportions. (Laughter). The bringing out of publio schoolboys under the present conditions was a scandal, said Mi- Coleman. The booklet further inferred that the average wages of working men ranged from £7 IDs to £ll 10s per week, Mr Coleman describing such statements as ■ “absolutely criminal”. People were being brought from the Old Country by'misrepresentation to face unemployment" and soup kitchens, and the best the ’Government could do to relieve the distress was to place a few on relief works. True the Government had limited immigration in the past few months, but it was then too late. The damage had been done. Labor proposed the regulation of immigration in accordance with the demand and the opening up of land-for settlement. The Government's policy showed that it had legislated. in the interests of those who wanted cheap labor.

THE INCIDENCE OF TAXATION. The Government had stated that the country was groaning under the burden of taxation and, therefore, i.t liad set allout granting relief. Remissions to the extent of £3,00,000 pea - annum were made largely to wealthy land-owners who were exempted from income tax altogether. A man with an income" of £IO,OOO annually was thus relieved of paying £2,000 per annum. Further, the Government had granted reductions in land tax payments, thus meeting the demands of its friends onoo more-. _ The land-owner, with the huge income, paid no income tax, and he was generally the one not burdened by mortgages on his properties either because the property had been bought cheaply in the early years or because it had been handed down. The wealthy companies likewise were granted remissions in taxation. Consequently on account of the decrease of 20 per cent, in the income tax revenue, the Customs taxation had been increased commonsurately, so that the Minister of Finance estimated for this year the revenue: from income tax would he £4,550,000 compared with £8,250,000 from Customs. That was how the Reform Government had moved the burden from the shoulders of the wealthy and loaded it on to the working man. The civil servants’ wages, too, had been reduced to help the Government find the' deficiency in revenue caused by the remissions to wealthy land-owners. The Govermnent now paid as low as £3 13s 4d to laborers. It was no wonder that wealthy land-owners and companies contributed largely to Reform’s fighting fund. Again, he said, that before the last election the Government had uttered no word about increasing: tile. rate of interest on State advances loans, but a month after being returned to power the race was advanced from 44 to 5| percent. That was how the Government helped the working farmer and legislated in the interests of the people of New Zealand. THE WAGES PROBLEM.

' Reverting to the cut in civil servants’ salaries, he said that Labor had endeavored to have the wages restored to the former standard, but until now, was unsuccessful, the Reform Party having voted against any such proposal. If Labor was placed in power it would res’tore civil servants’ salaries to the 1914 standard and would fix a basic wage sufficient to maintain a resonable standard ol living. Since 1914 there had been an increase of 62 per cent, in the cost of living and the buying power of the £ was now only 12s 4cl. The basic wage fixed by the Arbitration Court was £4. whereas it should be £4 17s 3d, so that tho men and women were being paid at the rate of nearly £1 below the 1914 standard. Was it right that the men who went, and fought be compelled to work for £1 less’a week? The best the Government could offer on relief works was 9s per day for single men and 12s daily for married men, who were working in the back-blocks under hardships. He cited the case of one man which he declared was by no means the worst. He had a wife and four children. His earnings for the month were £7 8s 2d. Stores cost £2 8s Id, and ho thus had only £5 to send his wife and four children to live on for a month. There were men in the hall that night who fared even worse and who left their jobs m debt to the cook-house. (Applause.! The men had to ' work six miles - from stores and were charged Is per hall sheep for cartage of meat by the overseer. In. that month the men worked 2034 hours, averaging B(’d per houT. Yet he had never known Mr. Lysnar to raise a voice of protest. On the other hand, every time Mr. Lysuar spoke concerning the working man lie insulted him. Mr. Coleman referred to the treatment the Government accorded .its high-paid officials, citing Mr. Sterling, who as manager of the Railways' was to receive £3,500 annually 4 voice: “Not enough.” iDaugnter.) Mr. Coleman said that that officer, after seven years’ service, was to be granted a retiring allowance of £2,500 per annum. Yet, if a laborer who 1 had grown old in the Government service at lsv lOd per hour, asked for fissistancWhe was informed he should have saved in his earlier years. Mr. Coleman referred to the statements and figures quoted by Mr. Lysnar concerning the increased returns of sheep and wool m 1912 under the Liberals compared with 1928 under Reform, and stated that only the wealthy land-owners secured the benefit. Ho hoped it would bo the last year of Reform. (Laughter.) Ihe bank returns likewise were equally good—for the shareholders. The savings bank deposits were a good indication of the prosperity of a district, , yet- an analysis here showed that the deposits ranked as one ol the lowest per head. TACTICS NOT BEEN, CHANGED. Mr. Coleman claimed that Labor •was fit to govern New Zealand, and ir the people felt they wanted a change of administration they had no alternative but to vote for Labor. The papers declared that Labor was not so red as it was, but pink. Dabor stood on the same platform it had always occupied, and as a membei of the National executive he claimed to know the party’s policy better than any editor or Mr. Lysnar. .the

party had not changed its tactics. The reason for the Press comment was that the Labor leaders had been able to meet thousands of electors whilst on tour, .and the latter had concluded they were reasonable men and statesmen. The papers were tryin<r to show that this was not the true Labor policy but he knew the electors would not be so hoodwinked. QUESTION TIME. Answering a series of written, questions, Mr. Coleman stated that he strongly favored the principle ol arbitration in the fixing of P. and 1. officers’ salaries. There were only two methods of settling disputes - by arbitration and direct action, and he favored the former entirely. Ho also; suggested that a Wages Board should be set up as in Australia, thus removing the matter from the splieie of political interference. He agreed also with the principle of a minimum wane for P. and T. officers of 21 years of age. There were a number of young mm in the Government service who were receiving a mere, pittance. •' •’ ... Answering another question.as to whether he favored the publication l of race dividends in tho press, Mr Coleman admitted ho did not know much about the question, but would be prepared to consider it and vote according to liis convictions, • ' ’ 7 - ’ • * • ; ' . ; '■ at Foot of Next Column.!