STONEWALL DEFENDED

Hawera Star, Volume L, 7 April 1931, Page 7

STONEWALL DEFENDED

ATTITUDE OF LABOUR. g TALK OF 10U HOURS EXPLAINED. Claiming that the way out of the country's difficulties lay not in wage reductions but rather in increasing wages, thus increasing purchasing power, Messrs F. Langstone and J. MeI Combs, M.’sP., explained to a crowded hall at Wellington on Sunday evening why' the Labour Party' had “argued for .100 hours” in its stonewall against the Government’s proposed 10 per cent, cut in wages as provided for in the Finance > Bill recently' passed by- Parliament. The speakers described this legislation as “unnecessary-,” “ridiculous,” “an attack on the workers’ standard of living,” and maintained that the Prime Minister should follow the lead given both in the U.S.A. and by' Mr Philip Snowden in England and hold the workers wages inviolate. Thc-y urged workers to stand behind the Labour party' at the next, election and allow it to gain the Treasury benches so that the “necessary readjustments in legislation could be made. ’ ’ ~ Both speakers were accorded a good el hearing, and there was frequent ap- h plause. Mr Langstone, who spoke first, said that the- Government, apparently, blamed the workers in the country' for the present crisis and had determined to make them pay-. The stonewall, he said, was the oniy' way' in which the Labour Party' could protest against, the legislation. Wage reductions, he claimed, were absolutely unnecessary; if tlic Labour Party' had been in power for the past ten years it would have not only lived within its income, but it would have left the country' (i 4 millions sterling better off than it was 1 to-day. Mr Langstone dealt at length with figures concerning borrowing during the past 12 years. Though the Labour Party hn"d stonewalled with all its strength/it could not be said' that it had not offered intelligent, constructive proposals that would meet the country's need, and ymt not entail wage reductions. Mr .T. McCombs referred to some of the ejection promises made by' the United Party', particularly its assentation that unemployment would be solved in five weeks, and proceeded to describe what he called its “ descent to the Reform Party’s policy.” The Government, he said, had had no mandate for its present proposals—-in fact, if it had any' mandate at all ff/was in the opposite direction. “The United Party has adopted the policy' that it will stand or fall on its present proposals,” Mr McCombs said. “It has made the welfare of its party the issue, not the welfare of the country'.” Mr Forbes was adopting an 18t-li century' method to meet a 20th century problem. The onlv solution of present-day difficulties was to 'increase purchasing power, as had been done in the U.S.A. in 1922, and as Mr Snowden was advocating m Great Britain to-day'. Both speakers were accorded an enthusiastic vote of thanks.