CAMPAIGN OPENED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27221, 26 October 1949, Page 6

CAMPAIGN OPENED

Prime Minister Reviews Achievements

HOUSING LOANS SCHEME PA AUCKLAND, Oct. 25. A scheme to provide loans for the people to build their own homes was one of the major planks in Labour’s policy announced by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, when he opened his election campaign in the Civiq Theatre to-night. He spoke to a sympathetic audience of about 1200 who gave him a practically uninterrupted hearing and heartily applauded his references to Labour’s past achievements. Mr Fraser said it was proposed to provide loans for house building up to 90 per cent, of cost. The loan would be £ISOO and the rate of interest would be 3J per cent. Land would be made available to borrowers at cost. Other promises made by the Prime Minister were: (1) the raising of the allowable income for Social Security beneficiaries to £1 10s a week from January 1 next; (2) complete security of tenure, freehold or leasehold, for the farmer; (3) as soon as all ex-servicemen are suitably placed the making available of land to young civilian farmers under similar conditions to those of ex-servicemen.

The meeting was presided over by the Deputy Mayor, Mr J. L. Coakley. A resolution thanking the Prime Minister “ for his very able and inspiring address ” and expressing complete confidence in the Labour Government and in Mr Fraser as its leader after hearing the policy of the party as enunciated by him was carried with few dissentients. In the resolution the meeting also pledged itself to do everything in its power to ensure the re-election of the Labour Government with a greatly increased majority and wished Mr Fraser every success throughout the campaign.

volume of money because so many men had been taken out of productive employment. No Government had ever had a closer grasp of the monetary situation. Mr Fraser said the country would have been bankrupt had it not been for the Government’s policy of exchange and import control. Stabilisation was still necessary and would be used to minimise the effects of overseas price increases. The Government would ensure fair prices for the consumer and a fair margin of profit for traders. Stabilisation had cost £ 13,900,000 and it had been well worth it.

Mr Fraser said Labour would continue to encourage the growth of manufacturing industries in New Zealand. The party would continue the control of currency and credit with the object of maintaining purchasing power, full employment and the better distribution of national income.

The National Party would lift the lid off by abolishing : price control, subsidies, rent control and land sales control, by altering the exchange rate and by allowing increased profits. After attacking the Government’s import control policy, the National Party now said it would establish a board instead of lifting import control. The only way they could reduce prices was by the “ old Tory way ” of reducing wages and bringing the people down to a lower level.

Mr Fraser was greeted with cheers and clapping. . “Labour—you and I and thousands and hundreds of thousands throughout the Dominion who have enabled the Labour Government to do this amount of good for the people—is confronted by those who do not believe in what Labour has done,” said Mr Fraser. “ If they do believe in it, why do they not support the Labour Government instead of opposing it? We, the Labour Party, enter the fray with enthusiasm and a sense of achievement. We confront all our enemies whether the National Tory destroyers on the one hand or the Communist destructionists on the other, or any others that may come along, and we go into battle figuratively speaking, with all our guns blazing.” The Prime Minister said he was glad of the calibre of the candidates he had with him in the coming struggle,, because it was going to be a great and severe struggle. It was going to be a fight, particularly in view of the state of the world, to maintain those standards of comfort and subsistence that the people of the Dominion had won. He quoted from Communist literature which rejected Parliament and advised members of the party to enter it only to destroy it. Inviting Communist candidates to reply publicly, Mr Fraser said there was no doubt their only object in seeking to

The Government had more than lived up to its promises of providing houses, said Mr Fraser, stating that 121,000 homes had been built, including 82,000 by the Government or with its assistance since 1935. It could be safely estimated that 50,000 houses could be built in the next three years and the Government would strive toward this. One million acres was set aside by the Lands Department for settlement, and already 500,000 acres had been settled by ex-servicemen. The Government was searching the world for farmingmachinery and would get it from the United States if it could not be bought in Britain, Mr Fraser said. The Maori people would be bringing in 200,000 acres at the rate of 20,000 acres a year. Land that had gone back would be brought into production again. The greatest project in the next three years was the drive for more production, with everyone giving of their best.

enter Parliament was propaganda with the sinister purpose of ultimately destroying the country’s democratic constitutions. Therefore, he did not take their candidature seriously. The Prime Minister said the Labour Party had come to power when the effects of the depression still kept the world in misery. To-day, there were signs again that these conditions might return. The people of the Dominion would have to decide in the coming election whether the Government which brought the country from slump conditions to one of the foremost positions in the world would be returned or others who would “mishandle and mismanage affairs in the same misguided way as the last National Government did.” Unemployment in New Zealand at present was at the lowest point ever. If a world depression had to be faced, the steps taken by the Labour Party to control currency and credit would be among the great bulwarks for the protection of this country, continued Mr Fraser. No matter whether unemployment and poverty were ramDant elsewhere, the Government would see that nobody in New Zealand went short of the requirements of life. Spending power would not be cut and the standard of living would be maintained.

Defending the Government against the criticism that it had caused inflation, Mr Fraser said, that subsidies and servicemen’s gratuities could not have been paid without increasing the