SOCIALISTIC AIMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22714, 28 April 1937, Page 12

SOCIALISTIC AIMS

GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME 'INTENTIONS IN BACKGROUND [nr telegraph—OWN correspondent] WELLING TON, Tuesday A 'warning to the people that if they did not do all within their power to fight the Socialist Government the day would come when'the teachings of Karl Marx would be an accomplished fact in New Zealand was given by Mr. W. A. Bodkin, M.P. for Central Otago, in an address in Wellington last night. He compared the policy now being put into operation with the manifesto issued by the Labour Party before the elections, and said that if the Government lind had its Socialistic ideals in mind all the time, then it had secured the Treasury benches by the grossest misrepresentation ever attempted in the public life of New Zealand. One of the most pleasing features of the campaign being conducted by the Parliamentary members of the National Party was that wherever they went they were being besieged by electors, who had something at stake in New Zealand, with offers of assistance in the light against Socialism. In his speech at Waipukurau he had suggested that the policy of the Government was Socialistic in every respect. The actingPrime Minister, the Hon. P. Eraser, after attempting to reply to some of his statements, had completely ignored the charge about the Government's Socialistic aims. Mr. Fraser, added Mr. Bodkin, was taking comfort from the fact that the people had been lulled into mistaken confidence, and from the fact that they had been lulled into a sense of false security as a result ol doses of soothing syrup issued from time to time by the Prime Minister. For that reason Mr. Fraser preferred that their Socialistic programme should be kept in the background.