WAIPAWA BY-ELECTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21148, 4 October 1930, Page 13

WAIPAWA BY-ELECTION.

MR TUCKER’S CANDIDATURE. SPEECH BY IIR DOWNIE STEWART. (Special to Daily Times.) BLASTINGS, October 3. Mr; W. Downie Stewart addressed a large audience at the Havelock North Village Hall this evening in support of the candidature of Mr William Tucker, the Reform candidate for the Waipawa seat. He was .listened to attentively throughout, great interest being taken in his. address, which was in the main a reply to Mr Jull, the United candidate.

Replying to Mr Jull’s statement that the Reform Party had indulged in an otgy of expenditure, which, he implied, led to its defeat at the poll, Mr Stewart said ,t was an astounding statement, because all the evidence was the other way. He could quote impartial authorities in. England, Australia, and New Zealand who agreed that-one of the mam features in the defeat of the Reform Government at last election was the fact' that it was trying to reduce borrowing and to curtail expenditure. Mr Stewart said the United Party had increased expenditure, increased Customs taxation, income tax and other taxes, increased interest rates, and increased unemployment. Mr Stewart, continuing, said there -was only one policy for New Zealand at the present time—viz., to reduce borrowing instead of increasing it, and take more rigid steps to see that loan moneys expended were not expended on uneconomic works. Referring to the railways, Mr Stewart said the difficulties were not entirely due to motor competition, because it apeared that the Government, when it promised to solve unemployment within five weeks, forced the railways to take on anything from 600 to 1000 men, and it was impossible for the railways to be saddled with such burdens ns that if they were to show commercial results. In making up the national Budget for their first full year of office the United Government had decided that it was necessary to increase taxation by £1,250,000 on the plea that they must avqid a repetition of the deficit of the previous year. The deficit of the previous year had been laid at his door, but the fact was that it occurred four months after he left office when everything was running smoothly! and he had previously come through three gruelling years, balancing the Budget on each occasion. He agreed that the Budget should he balanced, but the Government’s method appeared to lie clumsy and irritating.