MR. HOLLAND SPEAKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20598, 24 June 1930, Page 8

MR. HOLLAND SPEAKS.

A survey of the position when Parliament meets has just been made by Mr. Holland, Leader of the Labour Party. It is significant in somo details, but more interesting for its general tone. Mr. Holland appears to take no cognisance whatever of the financial position as outlined by the Prime Minister some time ago. From the telegraphed summary of his remarks, he spoke as if the statement foreshadowing a deficit of £3,000,000 had never been made. Further, if the character of his address is any criterion, the idea of allowing Mr. Forbes away in time to attend the Imperial Conference has made no impression upon him. The Labour Party, he says, will press for all that was laid down in the statement issued after its Wellington meeting early in the year. Judging by that, and by some of the points in Mr. Holland's speech, Labour's demands will amount principally to a demand for heavy expenditure of public money. If this proves correct, the position of the Government, presumably relying again, as it did before, on the Labour Party for its retention of office, will be decidedly awkward. The Prime Minister cannot accept this programme of expenditure without turning his back on the policy of economy he very definitely announced in his statement describing the year's financial prospects. The position, developed so far, seems quite as uncertain as Mr. Holland would have the people believe it to be. There is one little factor, however, which has a very direct bearing on it. Last session Mr. Holland said he would vote to put the Government out only if the Labour Party were to succeed it. That was an impossible condition then. It is equally impossible now. It served as a convenient excuse for forgetting some things to which the party was much more definitely committed than it is committed to anything by this pre-sessional address. The outlook, therefore, is probably much less un<mHam than Sir. Holland suggests.