ELECTION ISSUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23505, 20 May 1938, Page 10

ELECTION ISSUE

SOCIALISM OR FREEDOM? THE ALTERNATIVES STATED ADDRESS BY MR COATES (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, May 19. The Labour Party’s attempt to deify the State was strongly condemned by Mr Coates, M.P. for Kaipara, in an address to his constituents at Warkworth to-night. There was an attendance of over 200. Mr Coates said the question to be faced by the electors this year was whether they would support another period of State domination or whether they would return to the established principles of freedom.

“ The basic formula of the Labour Party,” Mr Coates said, “ is Government ownership, The Ministers in the present Government are not given to explaining how they hope to socialise the means of production, distribution, and exchange, but the main object is still there. The Socialist policy must make for a dead level of averages. Those who are opposed to it believe that only by clearing the way for individual progress can national progress be achieved.

“As I understand the policy,” Mr Coates said, “ there must be freedom of opportunity for the individual. The members of the Government consistently deny that opportunity. Without liberty for individual advancement, however, there must be stagnation followed by retrogression.”

The Government was determined to Socialise production, Mr Coates said. The dairy farmer to-day did not own his own produce, and every pound of butter and cheese produced was owned by the State. Mr Nash had perambulated the world endeavouring to arrange trade agreements. He had arranged for the sale of a small quantity of butter to Germany. but the whole aim of that agreement was that, if New Zealand found the money, Germany would buy our goods. It was by such means that the Government was endeavouring to bolster up its policy of Socialism. In other directions’ the State was exercising bureaucratic control. Tire pricefixing legislation gave the Government complete power for the Socialisation of distribution, while licensing under the Industrial Efficiency Act and the operation of the Bureau of Industry had a similar objective. Another hidden aim, Mr Coates said, concerned land-ownership. Mr Savage had stated that no attempt would be made to Socialise farms but Mr Langstone had flatly contradicted him by saying that all land should be owned by the State. The time was rapidly approaching when rising costs would overwhelm the farmer so that he would be forced to relinquish ownership of his land to the State. No farmer could possibly support such a policy. The ownership of property was always an incentive to the individual and to national development. “ We hear a lot of talk these days about policies,” Mr Coates said. “I can give you a policy In few words —freedom for the individual within New Zealand, freedom to live his own life and reach forward to his own destiny, and freedom for a strong Empire as the guardian of the peace of the world.” At the conclusion of his address Mr Coates received a vote of thanks and confidence.