THE
(Christchurch It iis to bo said of the. Labour Party in Parliament that ho speaks out, speaks plainly,- and, within the limits imposed by the Party’s narrow doctrine, shows a good deal of political dignity and commonsense. He does not run about .the country pretending, like the absurd present leader of the United Party, to have a political bomb up his sleeve, or in any way at all to be a man of roystey. He knows precisely what he wants, precisely what lie can and can not at present “get, away, with,” and he adapts his public conduct accordingly. ■ Unfortunately for him the limits posed by tliat policy appear more’ sharply every time he speaks. One of his clearest expositions of the Party’s aim, now' and "on coming into office,” was made to a West Coast audience two or three weeks ago, though in that and in the speech delivered at,. Auckland recently there v*as nothing new. Labour is committed neither to Protection nor to Free Trade, but to taking as many taxes as it can off one section of the community and putting them on to the other section. This is not how' it expresses the matter, but it is certainly what its policy comes to, and it is to be remembered that Mr Holland talks not merely of reducing indirect taxation, but of abolishing it altogether. He is determined also to make all the capital he can out of the present difficulties and anxieties (produced by world-wide causes) of land-holders—-and then, if the opportunity presents itself, to add to them tenfold by further instalments of Socialism. Labour’s land platform, lie says, includes “full recognition of the owner’s interest in all land, including ten- \ ure, rights of sale, transfer and bequest,” but he says also that it includes breaking up the larger, land properties by taxation, which in practice—if the country is ever 4 f polish enough to allow* Labour- to. practise a land policy—ni'eans treating everyone as an enemy - who happens to hold , hipre land, of whatever quality,, than Labour thinks, or chooses to say, any man should. It is of course not unusual for- political parties to make capital out of situations for Which their opponents in pow*er are in‘no w*ay responsible, and Mr Holland is doing no worse in talking about the number of men w*bo have been “driven off the land” than most political leaders have done since the party system began. But the point is that, if lie did succeed in saddling the Government with the responsibility for economic misfortunes which it did nothing to cause . and lias done more than any other Parly could possibly have done to alleviate, he would find himself committed to / the adoption of a policy which-would set hack the progress of agriculture a full generation. And Labour’s proposed, and intended, programme against land-holders is not the worst thing that tlie country has to fear if the Socialists anil tlie United Party between them succeed in defeating Reform. It intends ■to legislate to make fire and accident insurance a State monopoly; to establish a basic wage (of course without any relation to production), and to increase family allowances out oF the Consolidated 1* imd; to insure workers against unemployment, again at other people’s expense, increase, pensions for the aged, the widowed, tlie blind, the unfortunate of all kinds, wherever the money comes from for the purpose, and whatever effect taking it has on the number of unemployed eventually. That is Labour’s policy, and the point to be remembered is that it is not merely a. platform policy, but a programme that ivill and must be introduced if Labour ever succeeds at the polls. Mr Holland has not hesitated, to sav that the “working-man” who fails to vote for the Labour Party is “disloyal’ ’to his friends and to “the cause.” He could not hesitate, if he found himself with a Parliamentary majority, to legislate for “the cause,” which is Socialism. i
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Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1928, Page 2
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663THE Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1928, Page 2
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