The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, November 19, 1946. A QUESTION OF HONESTY

Grey River Argus, 19 November 1946, Page 4

The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, November 19, 1946. A QUESTION OF HONESTY

If a note of desperation is now creeping into the Nationalist press propaganda, it is no wonder. The party is playing itself out, going back each day upon what it had claimed to stand for only the day before. When Mr O’Brien draws the obvious conclusion, and'gives a warning that all Labour has done for the people might be speedily undone were the Nationalists in power, he is said to be gloomy. But what faith can be placed in the professions of politicians who say (1) that they are dead against any socialistic legislation, (2) that the Government’s legislation is entirely socialistic, (3) that they will not alter that legislation, and (4) that they intend to undo the law against speculative advances in land values? Propagandists who plead that this party wants a “property-owning democracy” must expect to be discredited. The real object is simply to add to the cost of any lapel on which exservicemen expect to settle a speculative advance in value since the year 1942. Were no speculative advance expected to be added, what is wrong with the 1942 value? Further, since Mr Holland obviously reckons 1946 values are definitely the greater, he must concede that, under this Government, land owners actually have been prosperous. Otherwise they would not to-day seek the marked increases in the prices which he desires to have paid for lands on which ex-servicemen are to' settle. The higher prices sought must nevertheless be largely speculative increases, and it is to be noted that' the Nationalists do not say

they would take last year as a standard. They actually want the value to be calculated by what speculators to-day are ready to offer. Such a negation of this legislation against speculation means precisely that the Nationalists have no notion of preventing the speculative advancing of land values. It is a fair .criterion of what they also mean when they pretend they would give a stake in the land to everybody—they would let competition run tn the same extreme as after the last wav, when it bankrupted the majority of the soldier settlers, not to mention other settlers later who fell a prey to the mortgagees. If the. Nationalists say this policy is their method of distributing property —prOductiv' property—their honesty is a minus quantity. That conclusion has a better warranty than the allegation of any Nationalist , propagandist who would deny the honesty of 'Labour leaders. It is suggested that Labourit.es doubt the Nationalists because they are themselves insincere; but that Mr Holland would break no pledge lest his party 'bo deprived of office; and yet, in the next breath, so to speak, the public is asked to believe that if Labour broke a pledge, there would be no guarantee of its losing office. What unadulterated tommy rot! Certainly this anomaly—the cessation of the elective principle—is only said to be “not difficult to imagine”; but there are at other times other dreadful dreams liable to invade the imagination. It -certainly is no wonder then if men and things seem “gloomy”, and foreign philosophy is visioned as a New Zealand reality! The Government has undoubtedly the most convincing scheme for spreading ownership of productive property among the community by way of the development of marginal lands, to the extent of half a million acres, increasing settlement to that 1 extent; settling thousands of ex-soldiers on land already broken in; increasing farm production systematically over the next five years; and maintaining the guaranteed price for the dairy industry. New settlers will not be expected to pay through the nose for a chance to own, or shoulder mortgages leaving them owners only, in name. It is a reasonable inference that if the Nationalists want to have land dearer than it now is, they are less concerned about increasing the number with a stake in the country than about enriching those who hold the land already. The truth is that, while Labour’s policy is all of a piece—full employment, maximum primary and secondary production, and no poverty —the patchwork put forward by the National Party as a policy docs not hold together, but is quite contradictory. That fact, coupled with the Government’s record, is going to prove decisive at the polls.