INTENT ON THE FUTURE,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22721, 6 November 1935, Page 8

INTENT ON THE FUTURE,

The National Government candidate for Dunedin Central, Mr D. ■ C. Cameron, who opened his campaign with an address to the electors of Mornington last evening, is obviously intent on the political realities of the moment and on the needs of the future. There was* a welcome note of purposefulness in his speech. Mr Cameron showed himself to be concerned not so much with what the Government had done or had not done as with what it proposed to do in the future. He did, however, give good and sufficient reasons for his decision to contest the seat as a Government candidate. The Government, he said, had not only undertaken, during the past four years, a constructive task of tremendous difficulty, but it was still the only political group to which the country could look for sound and enlightened guidance in the future. And that is no less than the truth. But it is not an argument which can be expected to impress those who refuse to give credit where it is due. Opposition critics of the Government, none of whom was willing to put a shoulder to the wheel when weight was badly needed, still find it the easier way to attempt to discredit the Coalition by attacking it •on its record. That there have been mistakes no one would attempt to deny. But it should be equally plain, even to the dullards in politics—of whom not a few seem to have found their way on to the hustings—that in the main the Government’s record is one of difficulties courageously and capably surmounted. For the future the Government proposes no departure from sanity, no departure from prudence. Its policy will be to continue to help the country along the road to recovery, the worst part of which has already been traversed. It has plans for social insurance, for housing, for the further expansion of industry, for a more determined assault on unemployment over an imposingly wide front. But it is making no extravagant promises and no claims to infallibility, and it will steadfastly refuse to adopt any course likely to imperil budgetary stability or to involve the loss of any of the hardlywon ground of the past two or three years. This is the approach to the problems of the day which Mr Cameron deems essential if confidence is to be assisted to develop strongly during the coming Parliamentary term. Mr Cameron also shows that he has a proper conception of the responsibilities that attach to the |

position of people's representative in Parliament. He proposes, if elected, to devote his undivided attention to the needs of his electorate and of the country as a whole, and, in stating his intention, in that event, to vacate his seat on the City Council, he makes it plain that he is prepared to give more than lip-service to a principle. The point is not without its significance in Dunedin, as elseAvhere, at a time when the old familiar catch-cry of "one man, one job," seems to have been conveniently tossed into the limbo of discarded beliefs. So far as a developmental programme for the future is concerned, Mr Cameron's speech discloses a familiarity with current problems rightly to be expected in a man of his experience in, business and public body administration. He recognises that the results of the Government's recovery legislation are now beginning to manifest themselves and to show encouraging' signs of permanence, and he sees the danger of disturbing confidence by putting the reins of government into the hands of confessed experimentalists. The Labour Party and the Democrats are each putting before the electors a programme in which drastic reduction of taxation is bracketed with an enormous increase in expenditure. The country cannot have it both ways. Mr Cameron sees the heed for lightening the taxpayer's burden,, and so does the Government. Mr Cameron sees opportunities for, a wise extension of the social services, and- so does the Government. But the Government's last word is that relief will be given, and extra expenditure incurred, just as soon as circumstances warrant a further loosening of the national purse-strings. Given a continuance of prudent management, we should not have to wait long for that day.