OUTLOOK FOR DOMINION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20761, 2 January 1931, Page 12

OUTLOOK FOR DOMINION.

SOLVING ECONOMIC PROBLEM LABOUR LEADER'S VIEWS. [BY •JT.I.ECRAPIT. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WES'JTORT, Wednesday. "I will join in voicing a universal wish for happiness and prosperity in the coming year," stated Mr. H. E. Holland, M.P., Leader of this Labour Party, in a message issued this morning. "The sum total of prosperity is tho condition which prevails when people in the main aro lifted above tho haunting fear of want. How to bring that about is a real social problem. There is no shortago of the necessaries of life. There has been, and there is, a largo measure of failuro to bring labouring power into application with Nature's resources, and wo aro now confronted with tho paradox of women and children enduring poverty, want and hunger in a country with immense potentialities. "We have the equal paradox of thousands of unemployed men clamouring for tho right to work. What is tho remedy? The duty of all parties is to provide an effective answer. Especially is it tho duty of tho Government Certain of our primary industries are suffering because of what appears to bo deflation in other lands as well as in our own. But tho position is not nearly so dismal as somo have a tendency to present it. "No policy of wage reductions could help Now Zealand at this juncture, and it certainly could not help the working farmer," continued Mr. Holland. Widespread wage reduction would havo for its main effect a lowering of the living standards of tho people as a whole, and that would be a disastrous curtailment of purchasing power. Such a policy would accentuate the period of economic depression. "Whatever party governs during the coming year, it can only succeed by close attention to the problems of the primary producers, and also to those who arc engaged in tho output of coal, timber, and other equally important primary products," said Mr. Holland. "State aiding and encouragement must, of necessity, be forthcoming in these cases and also in secondary industries."