FIRST SHOT

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6735, 11 October 1928, Page 7

FIRST SHOT

Opposition Leader Commences Campaign

REFORM ARRAIGNED

LABOUR VIEW EXPOUNDED TO MASTERTON ELECTORS,

Per Press Association. MASTERTON, Last. Night. The fiirst shot in tho Labour campaign was fired at Masterton to-night by Mr. H. E. Holland, Icaddr of the Opposition, who was greeted enthusiastically by a crowded hall. In opening the meeting (Mr. T. Jordan) said too little was heard from tho political loaders in this country and the community went mostly by what it read of their words. Masterton was honoured by the fact that Mr. Holland had chosen it as tho place wherein to open Labour’s political campaign. Mr. Holland said what would bo tho greatest political battle in the history of New Zealand was about to take place in tho respective constituencies. He believed that the real contest would be between tho two main parties, Labour and Reform. Who. ever were opposed to the existing Government must cast their votes for the official Opposition. Tho day of the old Liberal Party, groat as its part in past politics had been had passed and Labour had displaced the old Radical parties. Ho wished -to draw attention to tho lack of business methods rn Parliament. No business man would conduct his affairs as the business of Parliament was conducted. The speaker’s experience w r as that to keep up with events in ,the House, he must bo back 'at 9 a.m., after sitting until 4 a.m. There should bo fixe! hours for Parliament, he declared, because members were often asleep in there scats. Freehold or Mortgage-hold? With regard to tho Reform Party and its failure to carry out its promises, Mr. Holland said that the Reform Party had promised the farmers, among other things tho freehold of the. land. Had the farmers got that freehold? ho asked. ■ They had got the "mortgage-hold" instead. The Reform Party had -promised legislation against aggregation, whereas present conditions in New Zealand wore a record of aggregation, in support of which ho quoted figures to show that the land wealth was concentrated in tho hands of comparatively few people in New Zealand. Mr. Holland asserted that land values had to bo taken into consideration and said that the increase in the number of mortgages under tho Reform Government constituted a stranglehold on the farmers of tho Dominion. One of the hardest factors tho farmer was up against was the high rate of interest, which worked out to about £19,000.000, of which the farmers’ share was over £10,000,000. Ever since the speaker had been in the House, the farmers had clamoured for rural credits and agricultural banking. The Reform Government had responded with legislation which had proved of no value whatever.

The Labour Party had made it clear that tho small farmer would pot pay income tax but those big landowners, who were not sufficiently taxed at present ,would be made to do so. Because of these largo landowners, tho workers of Now Zealand had to pay increased taxation, direct and indirect.. Gambling In Land.

Another phase of the Government’s land policy, said Mr. Holland, was that legislation which drove , settlers ■off the land. Tho Government had promised farmers security of their holdings, the Labour Party’s policy must bo to keep the man on tho land and overcome the huge land gambling operations that had gone on as was shown by the land transfers, which since 1912, under , the Reform Government, numbered 484,000 a figure equal to three transfers for every land-hold-er in Now Zealand . The cost of those transfers had been £25,000,000 and while a number of those transfers had been unavoidable, it was not to be denied that the cost of those transfers added further liability to tho man taking over the land. Going on to deal with dairy control the speaker said the Government carried a weighty responsibility in the matter of the attempt to wreck dairy control or tho marketing of New Zealand’s primary products. Those passed through six or seven hands before they reached the consumer. Co-opera-tive marketing, affirmed by the dairy suppliers emphatic vote, was intended to meet tho difficulty but Mr Coates and his Government surrendered as soon as the guns of Tooley street thundered and the interests of the primary producers were made a matter of secondary consideration. In criticising , tho earlier Rural Credits scheme, the speaker said that tho country had paid £6OOO for the report of a Commission which could have been compiled without , going out of Now Zealand, and which report the Government did not adopt. The Government’s Rural Credits scheme was not going to help the farmers to any degree, as it did not make more credit available, and the scheme was practically dead, Rural Credits. Tho latest scheme of Rural Intermediate Credits was a different organisation altogether. The sum of £9O which the farmer paid, was held by the Rural Credits Board as security for every £IOOO of loan ho obtained. The speaker said he wished he could borrow something on what he owed. In dealing with interest charges, Mr Holland made the charge against tho Government that its policy with regard to tho Post 'Office Sasings Bank and State Advances had been practically*

dictated by tho Associated Banks and financial institutions of tho country than which, ho said, there was no stronger argument for a State Bank. Concerning Mr H. H. Sterling, gen-eral-manager of the Railways _ and his_ treatment in’regard to superannuation, tho speaker stated that the Government had made legal an illegality because of its weight on the floor of tho House. Tho action of tho Government had made it open for railway servants, whoso time had been broken, to claim equal treatment- to that accorded’ Mr Sterling. : - j. Tho speaker said there had been a certain loss on non-paying . railway lines in this country and in criticising the Government’s system of reckoning, said that there had been a loss of £IO,OOO more than had been shown. Unemployment, said Mr Holland, had boon caused in part by tho Government’s immigration policy and the Labour Party was not prepared to continue immigration when it meant that tho New Zealander was to lose his position. Tho ' unemployed should be placed in the positions to which they belonged, and if that were not possible, they should be paid -standard rates of wages. . ; Labour’s Promise. Tho Government pleaded it had not the money to hand for different works but it could vote £1,000,000 to .the Singapore Base scheme, which would soon bo obsolete. There was no time, concluded tho speaker, at which State enterprise were in greater jeopardy than at the present, Tho Labour Party’s policy was tho devising of a land Bill to break up big estates, firstly by negotiation and secondly, by compulsion, with tho right of appeal in tho latter case. If the appeal rvent against the Government, then it would buy the land at the figure fixed by tho higher tribunal. Labour would grade tho laud tax more steeply to bring about closer settlement and would undertake the work of clearing the land before the farmer went on it. Another part of Labour's policy would be the setting up of a State Bank, a system of unemployment insurance, invalid pensions, tho amendment of the Education Act and the reorganisation of boy conscription, these measures to be introduced before tho first three years of Labour’s office.