Mr. Nash Expounds Labour Policy

Northern Advocate, 13 July 1938, Page 5

Mr. Nash Expounds Labour Policy

[Per Press Association. Copyright. ] WELLINGTON, This Day. Speaking in the Address-in-Reply Debate last evening, the Minister of Finance and Marketing, the Hon. W. Nash, said the Forbes’ Government had supported peace and the League of Nations and the Opposition was criticising the present Government for adhering to the principles set up by' that Government. An Opposition interjection: Circumstances are somewhat different to-day. Mr Nash: Yes, of course. The Government of that day is the Opposition now. (Laughter.) Mr Coates had challenged the Government to mention a single measure brought down by the previous -Government which interferred with the freedom of the individual. Had the past Government brought in a law barring the building of picture theatres?

The Government had been chided for not restoring returned soldiers’ pensions. Who had cut the returned soldiers’ pensions in the first placg? he asked. When the question of restoring returned men’s pensions was considered, the Government had told them ; they had something which they considered more urgent at the time —that ' was giving pensions to soldiers’ widows, who (had not had pensions before. Soldiers’ economic pensions would be restored, added Mr Nash. The Minister defended Mr Jordan’s attitude at Geneva, and went on to defend the guaranteed price system for butterfat, slating that there was no one connected with marketing, not even the Government’s opponents, who. did not admit that the Government’s policy of marketing in London had given ' stability in the butter market in the Old Country that had never been there before. He added that, as a result of the Government’s overseas marketing, there had been a saving effected on butter alone of "12.089 d., or a' total : of £165,000. The figure in connection with cheese,amounted, he thought, to somewhere in the vicinity of £85,000. He repudiated Mr Coates’s suggestion that overseas goods were being purchased in preference to New Zea-land-manufactured products, stating that on March 31, 1937, 17,000 more people were engaged in factories in the Dominion than hitherto. The Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong: There are 35,000 more this year.

Labour’s Methods.

In conclusion, Mr Nash outlined the method which was observed in the formation of Labour’s political policies. He stated that at the annual conference of the Labour Party every member had a right to write remits for the consideration of the conference. WTien these remits were passed they were written into the policy of the Party by the Prime Minister and the president of the party. Then electors at election time were asked to vote for Labour candidates who were pledged to -

support that policy. . When Labour members were elected to Parliament they were expected to assist in writing that election policy into the laws of the land, without outside interference of any kind. He stated that the Labour Government would go to the country oit its record for its two and a-half years of office, and it asked the Opposition to go to the country on its record of office. The Under-Secretary for Housing, Mr J. A. Lee, said the issue at the next election would be between Socialism and rugged individualism. The country had experienced “rugged individualism” during the depression years. New Zealand’s whole political tradition was one of innovation and experiment, and it had resulted from the refusal by the mass of people to allow the mass to suffer because some orthodox economist considered they should.