CAPITAL AND LABOR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 15089, 11 December 1919, Page 9

CAPITAL AND LABOR.

NEED FOR UNDERSTANDING. LIBERAL LEADER AT WAVERLEY. (Special to the Herald.) j WAVERLEY, this day. ' New Zealand's indebtedness to-day is approximately £200,000,000, and the only way to reduce it and also ease the burden t)f taxation is to find new sources of revenue, saidi Sir Joseph Ward, m addressing the largest audience that had ever assembled at Waverley. This, he continued, could, only 'be done by bringing about a better understanding between Capital and moderate Labor, j and bo making for the establishment of a Government representative of the | community. As a whole capital wasj handicapped without labor, and the latter could not carry on without capital and while industrial : unrest continued the country could not progress. It would go back. Moderate Labor was entitled to consideration,; and if it did . not get it then/ the interests of the Dominion would) suffev. NEWi ZEALAND'S FINANCES. We were at present facing a crisis, and it was not only essential that ourj resources should be conserved, Ibut also that new avenues of revenue should be opened up. Admittedly m propor- . tion. to its size and population New Zea--1 land was m a stronger position to-day j than any other, country that had been" fighting during the war. It was the only country that wound up with a surplus, for which he, as Minister for Finance, took the credit. When he , went out of office before the . war he left a, surplus of £850,000. This was subsequently reduced to £72,000, at which total it stood when he went into the National Government. When he left it the surplus amounted to over £15,000,000. He reconstructed the whole financial systeni of the country during the war, and yet he never heard any of his opponents giving him the credit for it. However, although we were m such an excellent position, that was not enough. Our taxation had to be reduced, and that was why he advocated the nationalisation of coal mines, under which systeni the men would be treated as other public servants, and so do away with industrial strife. The nationalißatfon of hydroelectric works, which would place the Dominion m the forefront with the world's greatest industrial and manufacturing countries, and the establishment of a State Banfo the value of which was proved both m France and m Germany during the war period, and also m Australia. ' Not one of the schemes should cost a penny m extra taxation, but all would eventually prove of incalculable value to the Dpmin,ion. j