POISON GAS IN POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18079, 2 May 1922, Page 6

POISON GAS IN POLITICS.

An early shot in an electioneering campaign is pardonable, but there is no excuse for the poison gas which the Leader of the Labour Party released at his meeting in Christchurch on Saturday night. He said : "As the election drew nigh Mr. Massey would say there was no need for a cut in wages, but if the Labour Party failed to make any material advance he predicted that one of the greatest offensives against wages New Zealand had known would be launched right after the elections." ' There is here a suggestion that the ; Government can raise or lower wages at will. Ignorance might excuse such a statement, but Mr. Holland cannot put forward that plea. He knows that there are forces affecting wages that are beyond Mr. Massey's control as they are beyond the control of the Labour Party. Industrial conditions are forcing wages to a lower level, and it will be surprising lif they have not become effective I before the elections, in which case Mr. Holland will have proved to be la false prophet as well as a slim politician. It is not by Mr. Massey's choice that wages are falling, but he does squarely face the unpleasant facts and, realising that a moderate adjustment will stimulate trade and prevent unemployment, he is frank enough to say so. Mr. Holland,* on tho other hand, is posing as the workers' champion, the man who undertakes to do for them the impossible thing of keeping wages high at a time when prices are 1 falling and trade languishing. Even if he were in Mr. Massey's place now Mr. Holland eould not fulfil this votecatching promise, and Mr. Massey of a certainty will not try, either before or after the election, to go outside the Prime Minister's proper functions by entering on a wage.cutting campaign. To suggest that he may do so has nothing whatever to do with the realities of politics and is no more than an appeal to ignorance in. the hope that it may catch a few stray votes.