POLICY DESERTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23073, 25 June 1938, Page 17

POLICY DESERTED

" GOVERNMENT ON RUN " REPLY TO PRIME MINISTER SOCIALISATION OF LAND [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] TAURANGA, Friday "Members of the Government coined a phrase about running shoes and made great play of it while it suited them, but seven-league boots would scarce measure the speed with which to-day the Government runs away from its principles." This statement was made by Mr. F. W. Doidge, National candidate for the Tatiranga seat, when addressing a public meeting at Mount Maunganui to night. "One man, one job, was for years a plank in the Labour Party's platform; that plank has gone," Mr. Doidge continued. "It was deliberately expunged at the Easter conference of tho party. Next to go was the principle behind the guaranteed price. "Most astonishing of all, we now witness the spectacle of the Prime Minister thrice denying tho most vital principle in tho Labour Party's platform. Tho Prime Minister beseeches the farmer not to believe that it is tho Government's intention to socialise tho land. Everybody knows that the party's first objective, unanimously affirmed at the Easter conference, is the socialisation of tho means of production, distribution and exchange. "Everybody knows that the State ownership in the party's platform provides under sub-clause 4 for the establishment of State farms for the purpose of providing tho people's foodstuffs." said the speaker, "and subclause 5 provides for the expansion of public ownership of national utilities and the speedy national control of the food supplies of the people. "To this policy of socialisation the Prime Minister and his colleagues were unequivocally pledged, but in the light of Mr. Savage's recent speeches one of two things must have happened. Either the Labour Party has abandoned its main objective of socialisation or Mr. Savage has repudiated the policy of the party. In either case the farmer will not be gulled, but the rank and file of the Labour Party must bo bewildered."