WHERE DOES LABOUR STAND?

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4046, 26 April 1932, Page 2

WHERE DOES LABOUR STAND?

MR CDATES'S INTERROGATION GOVERNMENT'S PUBLIC SAFETY MEASURES WELLINGTON, April 19. Amid a hubbub o! interjections, which made Ids words at times scarcely audible, Mr Coates in the House to-night criticised the remarks of members of the Labour Party at public meetings in support of his contention that they must take the responsibility for the trouble which had rendered necessary the introduction of the Public Safety Conservation Bill. Mr Coates said all Governments had heard the cry that they must resign. He did not think Mr Holland realised his-responsibility. There had been nervous tension on the part of the Labour Party during the debate on the Bill. They had endeavoured to control the meaning of their words, and had tried to keep their real feelings uuer control. Referring to Mr Jordan’s statement that the Labour Party stood for law and order, Mr Coates read a reported statement attributed to Mr Richards, at a meeting of relief workers, that lie objected to the presence at the meeting of five .constables. He was also reported to have asked : Why should they be insulted by “blue coats ” being sent to meetings? Mr Richards: Quite so. Did you order them to go there? Mr Coates suggested that Labour members were speaking with two voices, and he proceeded to quote a resolution which, lie said, had been passed at the Labour Party’s annual conference last month to the effect that steps would be taken to organise the unemployed, the industrial Civil servants, and public opinion generally by way of demonstrations to compel the Government either to alter its present policy of reducing living standards or to resign. (Labour “ Hear, hears.”) Mr Coates said there had been a lot of talk about demonstrations, and now the Opposition members were not prepared to take the responsibility for the result of the demonstration which had occurred in Auckland. The responsibility for the initiation of such trouble must always rest with those who organised demonstrations. Mr Barnard: Who were the organise rs ? “ Tin's Government has been returned.” continued Mr Coates, “ with a free hand to carry out what it deems essential in the interests of the country.” If Labour had been returned, before many weeks New Zealand would have been in the same position that New South Wales was in to-day. He pointed to what had happened in other parts of the Empire, where Labour Governments were endeavouring to satisfy not only the unemployed, but also their own ardent supporters, and he added that they had miserably failed. The very people who had been loudest in their praises of Labour were the first to turn round and oust the Labour Governments from office. “If by chance the New Zealand Labour Party occupied the Treasury benches under the circumstances in which the Government is occupying them to-day,” said Mr Coates, “ they would be in precisely the same position, and the very people who put them there would be the people who would rend them asunder.” Mr Holland : Is that what is happening in your ease now? Mr Coates said the organisation of the unemployed originated with the Labour Party, and that organisation had worked incessantly, lie warned it to proceed with the greatest care. The Minister said it was the duty of every member of Parliament to point out to the country and to those who were in an unsettled state that nothing could be gained by direct action—that it was in their own interests that law and order should bo preserved. The Labour Party had carried out a definite policy of delaying the business of the House, and the country was entitled to know exactly where the Labour Party stood in the present situation. Mr Coates suggested that some of the speeches' made in the present debate were inflammatory, but he withdrew the remark at the instance of Mr Speaker, and substituted the expression “ rot helpful at the present time.”