NATIONAL DRIFT

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume VLI, Issue 3385, 23 September 1935, Page 5

NATIONAL DRIFT

STATEMENT BY DEMOCRAT LEADER “CHANGE MUST BE MADE” We can no longer trust the destinies of this Country to the members of the present Government and if we are to survive as a solvent and free people, a change must be made, stated Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, the leader of the Democratic Party in a recent speech. We realise that the time has come when we must stand together to meet the drift of our national affairs. We must save our country from the disastrous consequences already apparent, from a policy of expediency and revolutionary experiment. - The country today realizes that the two parties, which comprise what is now, for the purpose of an election, called the Nationalist Party, have both forgotten the principles for which they stood. They have followed a policy, the logical conclusion of which, is the subjugation of the people to a socialistic and bureaucratic control. With experiment following upon experiment, with a cynical disregard of the people’s rights, based on the cry of .expediency, with an unprecedented burden of taxation, crushing industry in ordd.r that the experiments may be supported, the confidence of the people has hem destroyed. With all this, we are well aware of the many problems that in the past few years, have had to be faced and the temptations to follow wrong courses. We feel that we can no longer trust the destinies of this country to the members of the present Government, and that if we are to survive as a solvent ana free neop e, a change must be made. We have adopted a comprehensive policy, which has been arrived at with a due regard to the economic conditions of this country. We claim to have avoided both parsimony and extravagance. After an exhaustive investigation extending over many months, and an

examination of all the factors involved, we have decided upon constructive proposals affecting the major problems of the day. While thoroughly appreciative of the different problems that have confronted the Government, we hold, on major issues, fundamentally different views with regard to the means of solving those problems. Let us work so that the Parliament of this country may be restored to its rightful place in the minds of the people—a place where it will have their respect and their confidence. Let us work so that no man, no woman and no child in this country, shall eat their daily bread embittered with a sense of charity. Let us work, so that each again may go to his daily task, with a sense of pride and security. Let us work so that hapiness, contentment and confidence may be restored in this glorious country. The Party has now been definitely launched. The strenuous endeavours that have been made to wreck it have all completely failed, and the Party will go to the polls in full strength, with a complete complement of candidates, a sound and practical policy and a most able and distinguished ' -dor.