LABOUR AND SOLDIERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19712, 11 August 1927, Page 11

LABOUR AND SOLDIERS.

ATTITUDE IN WARTIME. CHARGES AGAINST PARTY. PRESENT POLICY ATTACKED. [BY TELEGRAPH. —SPECIAL REPORTER.] WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The solicitude which the Labour Party has recently exhibited concerning the welfare of returned soldier settlers was referred to in the Budget debate in the House this afternoon by Mr. F. Waite (Clutha), who has a distinguished war record. "Those of us who were away are becoming sickened with the interest which the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. H. E. Holland, and the member for Christchurch South, Mr. E. J. Howard, have displayed in the returned soldiers," said Mr. Waite. "When your brothers and mino, Mr. Speaker, were hanging on by the skin of their teeth to Chunuk Bair, what was the Labour Party doing? When a man intimated he was going away they tried to dissuade him." , Mr, W. E. Parry (Auckland Central): Oh, give us something new. Mr. Waite: They would have denied US reinforcemnts. Mr. Parry: Give us something sensible; that is worn-out stuff. Mr. Waite said the soldier settlers in Otago were satisfied they had been given a fair deal by the Government. Enormous reductions had been made in their liabilities. He was certain and so were the Returned Soldiers' Association and the individual men that the Pensions Board was more sympathetic now than it had over been. At this stage Mr. Waite pleaded for more gas equipment for tho territorial force. "As one who is fit for service and who will go overseas again if need he," he said, "I want to protest against being sent away this time equipped with just gas masks. Whatever any group of staid old gentlemen may decide around the conference table we know that gas will be used in the next war. The other side will use it and we shall have to do so also. Therefore, we must have men trained in tho use of the gas projector, but the Leader of the Opposition would deny New Zealand soldiers what everybody else will use." Mr. P. Eraser (Wellington Central): He did not say anything of the sort. He merely asked the Minister of Defence for information. Mr. Waite said the Labour Party was mistaken if it believed the farmers of the Dominion were not in favour of a defence scheme. The Labour Party had suggested that the money spent in defence would be better spent on education, but what good would all the degrees and diplomas be against an armed force ? "Whoever else may do so ; the soldiers and farmers will not forget," added Mr. Waite. "They will remember that tlie Labour Party tried to deny us reinforcements and that they did not care whether the men overseas lived or died. Ihey are no more entitled to speak on behali of the returned soldiers than when tnev were trying to starve and let them down in the last war." • . . In the absence of the Leader of Opposition, Mr. Fraser protested against the statements that the Labour I arty had sought to deny the Expeditionary borce reinforcements and that it would have starved the men. „ . „ , At the direction of the Speaker, Mr. Waite said he would withdraw anything he had said which was not in conformity with the rules of the House. The speech was characterised by Mr. D. G. Sullivan (Avon) as one of the most bitter and reactionary which he had heard in the House. Not only had it tended to revive old hatreds, but it was full of inaccuracies. The records of the House would show that a group of tlie Labour members had done everything in their power to improve the position of the rej turned men from the day when the first lofc came back.