STATE CONTROL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 193, 16 July 1937, Page 6

STATE CONTROL

“A BLIGHTING TYRANNY." LIBERTY IN JEOPARDY. “The time has come when everyone who lias any real regard lor the maintenance of the national honesty and high principles, which have been the pride and strength of our own land and tlie Motherland, should, for his or her own sake and for the sake of the country begin to take a practical interest in public affairs,” stated Hon. J. G. Cobbe in criticising, during an address at Apiti last evening, the Government’s legislative programme. “Aie you people going to hand over your liberty and all the things for which you have worked and saved and which you cherish, to he controlled by a selfappointed city Junta, whose members look with eyes of envy at the prosperity which you, by labour and frugality, may have acquired?” he asked. “I cannot bring myself to believe that this beautiful land of_ ours—this land so richly endowed by Nature, anil so fortunate in the character, ability and enterprise of its early settlers, will, in those later years, so fall from its high estate as to become a hotbed or revolutionary Socialism. I am satisfied New Zealand wants sane, steady, common sense legislation; nothing showy, speculative, or one-sided. Class legislation is an intolerable interference with individual liberty. “The position in New Zealand at present is very serious; the property and lihertv of the people are being menaced. The aim of the Government seems to he to obtain control of the business, the capital and the landed property of the people and administer the whole in the name of the State. “Tht policy of a Socialist Government is to spoon-feed the worker on the one hand and paralyse his selfreliance on the other. T o the farmer and the business man they offer with one hand a visionary Utopia of ease and plenty, while they carry in the other the degrading fetters of State control. AYe. don’t want the Sovietism of Russia in New Zealand. New Zealand was not built up by the talkers; it was built up by men and women who toiled and saved ; its early settlers were possessed of vision, courage and enterprise. Have we inherited their self-reliance, have we inherited their love of freedom and their sturdy independence? . “If we submit to the regulation of Socialism, what about the future of our race?” asked Mr Cobbe. “AA ill those who follow us he able to stand up as free men and free women anil look the whole world in the face? Or will they he poor cringing creatures, all of one type, drilled into one class and one croeil. under the blighting tyranny of State control? T cannot believe that the people of New Zealand will o\cr sink so low.”