IF LABOR RULED.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16869, 26 October 1925, Page 11

IF LABOR RULED.

WHAT THEY WOULD DO. REEORAI PARTY CRITICISED. MR. HOLLAND HAS ROUSING RECEPTION. Tin' City Hull was packed lo llio doors mi Sal unlay evening when Mr. 11. E. 11o.lbind. M.P., louder of llie Now Zealand T/alml party, addressed the electors. Many were unable to gain adiuittanee. Air. Holland received a rousing reception when lie appeared on the stage, and throughout his address was given a most attentive hearing, there being an almost entire absence of interjections. He dealt fully with the Labor party’s land and financial policy, and ma(lc a strong indictment of the Government. At the conclusion of his address he was loudly applauded, and received a hearty vote of thanks.

The Mayor, Mr. G. Wildish, presided. Mr. Holland, said the chairman, would adopt the same practice as the leaders of the other parties, and would not answer questions. Those would bo left to the individual candidates to answer. In Gisborne they were fortunate in having three candidates before them, and it was for the electors to decide which man was to represent them in Parliament.

Air. (Holland, who received a round of applause, said that he was there to place before them some aspects of the Labor party’s platform. .To-day the lines of demarcation were drawn between the Reform party and the Nationalists on the one hand, and the Labor party on the other. In the days gone by the Liberal party had played a big part in the history of New Zealand, but to-day it was dead. It now announced that it would join forces with Reform for the purpose of lighting the Labor party. Every vote cast for a Liberal was a vote for Reform, and every vote for Labor was a vote cast against the Reform party, lie was not there to indulge in personalities, but to explain his platform. He was there to give the strongest posjsiblc support to Air. Coleman’s candidature and not to belittle the other .candidates. No matter what thy capabilities of the other candidates, Air. ’Coleman would not take second place to either of them. Ho was confident that when Air. Coleman was elected to Parliament on November 4, that he could do the greatest good to the Labor party, of which he would be an honored member. (Loud applause). Every time the Labor party challenged the legislation of the Reform party they had a definite policy to offer in place of ■what they wished to reject. (Applause.) LAND QUESTION.

He would deal first with the land question, and later with other aspects of their platform. His first charge against the Reform Government was that during its 13 years in office its policy had accentuated land aggregation in New Zealand. He would deal with the Dominion as a whole and .would take figures which had been Supplied by the Government .Statistician. At the.present time the Hon. Mr Bollard, who was in charge of the statistics, was more concern,ed about keeping snakes', uml leopards out of New Zealand tlian keeping figures in it. (Laughter. J Now Zealand had occupied lands —in other w ords, rural lands —totalling something like acres,, .with only slightly over 30,000 holders occupying these lands. That was all too small a proportion of the population to hold the whole of the rural lands of New Zealand. But they had to remember that out of those 80,000 there were slightly under 7000 who held among them nearly 30,000,000 out of the 43,000,000 acres," that 60 of theso held 5,000,000 acres between them (an average of more than 80,000 acres each), and that there were . nearly 80,000 who held among them less than 14,000,000 acres. It meant that less than one-twelfth of the landholders of New Zealand held more than' twothirds of the Occupied land's; if meant that more than eleven-twelfths of tho landholders held less than one-third of tlic occupied lands. The Labor party held that this'gave the answer to the Government's state-, intuit that land-aggregation .did not ekist. There was a tendency towards an increase of the larger estates. The Labor party held that it would be far better to have a largo proportion of the people settled on small rural holdings than to have immense areas in the hands of a few. In oflico they w.ould at once pay attention to estates exceeding £20,000 in value. They would steeply grade the land tax against large estates. Tho sum total of . the mortgages in the country had increased by 200 per cent. The Reform party told .tho farmer they had given him the freehold, but all the farmer really had

received was a mountain of mortgages. The real test lay with the question of who held the title deeds. (Applause.) If the big mortgagee concerns held the titles, then the farmers only held the mortgagchold. A voice: The freehold is what v.e want.

The chairman appealed for a fair Inariim for the visitor, and no interji cfioife. .Mi- Holland: It’s quite all right. I lit n 't mind honest interjections, because what 1 am saying must hurt somebody in the audience, tLaughter). The Reform press were glad to level charges of go-slow against workers, but they tlid not level charges against the mortgagee going slow. (Laughter and applause). Whilst the farmer was listening to the Reform press telling him the Labor party was going to take his farm, the mortgagee was actually taking it. (Laughter and applause). The Reform party covered up the scandal of the mortgages and the interest bill. All over New Zealand he found farms with four mortgages on them and in Taranaki he found that there wore tea mortgages on the one farm. At one ;of his meetings an interjcctor had said that he knew of a farm with 27 mortgages. The interest bill on the registered mortgages annually would be not loss than £17,7)00,000.

As an individual, the big landowner paid more than the small landholder in actual money tax. The big man certainly did not pay as much in proportion as lie should, but the fact remained that he paid more as an individual taxpayer than the small man. With regard to the mortgages, it was a different proposition altogether. The burden of the mortgage fell principally upon the small farmer, and not upon the big land-holder. Under the Government’s administration the rate of interest had increased. In 1912, the amount borrowed at rates ranging from 5J to 10 per cent, was £3,817,774; in 1913 (the year following the Reform party’s accession to office), it rose to £9,558,390; and last year (1924) it rose to £24,001,459. In this latter year there was one mortgage registered (£500) with the. rate of interest at 25 per cent., and another (£O7) at 40 per cent. Some of those present had no doubt followed Ballanee and Sodden. When speaking in 1899, Air. Scddon, in reply to the attack of the members of what is now the Reform party, and in defence of his land policy as against their alleged freehold, said, “The end of the freehold system is that the mortgagee gets the farm and the farmer gets the road.” (Applause). The productive value was the only real value of (he land and when that was exceeded they were laying up bur-dens-for the whole of New Zealand. (Applause). Gambling in land values and the heavy charges which belonged to the land-agency system were the undoubted causes of the heavy inflation. The Labor party proposed to meet this immediate difficulty by having all transfers made through tlic Lands Transfer Department at the net cost of transfer. . The fact that the cost to the country of making land transfers now averaged nearly two and si half millions a year was a sufficient justification for this step.

The Labor party stood for a laud tenure based on tho occupation and use of the land and designed to secure to the working farmer the full fruits of his labor and exertions. This proposal would be fought to the last ditch-by the. financial, institutions, mortgage, concerns, mercantile houses, and individuals interested in exploiting tlfo farmer. They also stood for the tenant’s absolute right to the improvements made by himself, while securing to the community the values Ijinl were created by tho community. They wanted a Stale valuation of all priva I civ-owned land, this valuation to remain on record as the measure of I lie present holder’s interest in the land. It either had to be based on occupation and use or on speculation. All the lands which changed hands during I lie war, and in particular s;oI<Iior, settlements; were ..over-valued. The result was that the-land was purchased at prices very much above the real values. On a previous tour of New .Zealand ho had had groups of settlers coming to him to tell him of their plight. When the late Mr. MaSsey.'brought down returns showing a surplus of £20,000,000, he (tho speaker) had protested against the reretufns as they represented fictitious values.. * His statement had been ridiculed, at (ho time, but during the last .12 months the Government had written down.the value of somo of the soldier settlement lands by £2,500.000. That did not mean they had done much for the soldier, but meant that the Reform Government had made a gift of £2,500,000 to landowners who profiteered in the properties. .(Applause). In a statement tabled by the Hon. A. D. McLeod, it

was shown that certain landowners had sold the worst of their properties for the soldiers and kept Die best for themselves. Y Applause). When tho Labor party got into power they did not propose to interfere with tho present owner’s right to sell to his own buyer. He also would have the opportunity of selling through the Land Transfer Department and saving money while selling. On the other hand the Government would be prepared to pay the full price for a property and pay the full assessable value of anv improvements which had been effected.' Tho mortgage policy could never offer the farmer as good a deal as that. (Applause). All tho resources of the Stato should be brought to bear to keep tho working farmer on the land —farming that land for his own benefit and not for that of the mortgagee. (Applause). An attempt had been made by tlicir opponents to create an idea that under the Labor policy a man would not bo permitted to will his property to his widows or orphans in the event of his death. This was nof so. The annual conference had made it clear that the Labor party’s proposals “do not in any way interfere with the Tight of inheritance. ’ ’ A man would still have the right to will his property to his wife and children, or, while living, to transfer it to his children. The Labor party not only wanted to hold the working farmer .on the land; they wanted to hold his sons there also. They recognised it was far better that the farmer’s son with a practical experience of farm work should stay on the land rather than be sent to the so-called ‘genteel’ occupations. While the right of inheritance would not be interfered with, it was safe to say that the death duties on the larger estates would be heavily increased. They tried to make lawyers out of their sons, but there were far too many lawyers in New Zealand now. (Laughter). Continuing, the speaker said that there was no reason why all children should not get the higher, education, and the,Labor party’s policy of free education would work to that end.

TAXATION. Dealing with the reductions in the taxes made by the Reform Government, the speaker said that the big men had got them. A voice: Rot.

Another voice: He’s quite right. (Laughter). Continuing, Air. Holland said thatthe Labor party held that the Reform Government had taken it out of the hides of the smaller people. They had shown that the wealthy, taxpayer in New Zealand was immensely better off than the same taxpayers in Australia or. England. Sir .Taffies Farr had said that the income tax was the heaviest of any country in the British Empire. Air. Coates, on the other hand, talking to the wealthy landowners in Southland, us6d tho Labor party’s figures to show that the wealthy landowner was paying less taxation than in any other Dominion. (Laughter). He supposed that tho average wage of the worker in this district, would lie, £(110 per year. (Laughter). Well, lie had so often, heard Mr. Lj'sntir talking about tho wealth of the district'that they must excuse him if he were wrong. (Laughter). 'Pile larger the income of a man, the greater the relief given him by taxation. Under the 1925 income tax reductions,' a taxable income of £lO would receive lOd remission for the -vejir; £so'4/2; £IOO 8/4; £2OO 10/8; £3OO '£l\ ss; £4OO 11/2; £SOO 13/11; £IOOO £1 7/9; £SOO £0 18/10; £9OOO £SO; £IO,OOO, £194 8/10; £20.000 £3BB 17/8; £30,000 £583 6/6. Out of the 36,000 taxpayers in New Zealand, there were 2S taxpayers who took £67,228 out of the £150,000 reduction that was given. A voifcc: Some of them were bankrupt. Air. Holland: Oh no, they weren’t. The relief went to, the wealthy. Conti nuingr the speako'jr said that in 1922 the Public servants had got. what they voted for,, apd hail their - wages cut down.', 1 (Laughter): ' A voice: Qttit§ right too. (Laughter . Mr. Holland.said (hat, people usually got what tljcy voied for. While they were milling taxes, the Government was reducing the wages of the workers and

the public servants. The Hon. A. D. I McLeod had said that many of the work-! ing farmers were so badly off that they j could not afford lo buy Exits for then : children. He forgot that if they were j so badly off they would not have to pay j any income tax at all. (Laughter.) There' were big landowners in New Zealand . owning flocks of up to 101,000 sheep, and j w.ith incomes of £50,000 a year, declared j Mr. Holland, who wpre paying no in-j come tax. Because they were not pay j ing, the rank and file had to pay it for] them. (Applause.) The small fanner ; who was getting relief to the extent of. about 8/4 a* year was expected to throw up his hat, while concerns like the banks got remissions up to £60,000. (Applause.) INDIRECT TAXATION INCREASED. ]

Indirect taxation had been greatly increased. That fact would be demonstrated by a comparison of the Customs and exjaise taxation with the income tax. The following table would show the respective proportions paid through Customs and income tax out of every £IOO of tax collected in the years named:

The Labor party would steeply grade the taxes, and those with big incomes j would have lo pay the big taxes. It i was to the interest of everyone that the j national income should be spread over j the mass of the people, and not conccn- j trated among a mere handful of the people. (Applause.) j CLEARING VIRGIN COUNTRY. j The Labor party held that the State j should clear the land for the settlers. I The sale of the timber probably would ] pay for the clearing of the land. Road-, j and bridges should be made before the | settlers went on to the land, lie knew of settlers who had gone to the blpcks 4Q years ago and who were still waiting for the roads. They proposed to set up State depots in the main cities with a view to selling the farmers’ produce and saving proceeds for him. The Labor Government in England aimed it.

purchasing direct the supplies necessary 'for IJngland. Within live’ years a, Labor Government would, be in power in England,' and they- would, carry out the policy of buying gpods direct from the farmers; in the Dominions! . The Labor party in New Zealand would assist them m the project. STATE; SHIPPING. Tlfp party, propqsed a State, shipping line. To day the Dominion was in the hands of the Union Company, and it appeared; as if Gisborne was in the. same position. Quite rightly the men on tiio Wain pi at Auckland had held that they should not have to sail in a boat that they considered was not seaworthy. Because they would not do so, no boat was put on to serve the needs of Gisborne. Every British ship trading to New Zealand was - in the Inchcape combine, and mow they aimed; at getting the ships of other European countries into that combine. Wage reduction was aimed at by the combination, although it made huge profits. Tire’ Tory party in New Zealand aimed at wage reductions, and so did the Tory party in England. Capital knew no patriotism, and they were at the mercy of the British money-lender. Mr. Coates had. made a statement in the House about, the shipping trouble, but had refused to let Parliament deal with the matter, Mr. Coates had tiecn careful to- put- forward only the owners’ side of the' trouble. Everyone wanted to see the trouble settled, hut. the, ships equld. have been back long ago. The exporters had offered to pay the difference of £1 per month, but that was refused. The amount in dispute in New Zealand, was £3OOO. hut the trouble would; cost the. owners at least £9OOO. The owners were determined to force down the wages. Why lpgl upt Mr r Cqates inyited 01 1 e, speakqr to meet, the seamen when lie had had the conference with them? (Applause.) Mr Coates claimed, to he the captain of the ship in New Zealand, hut if they asked him to work for £2 lGs a week he would ;scon hop out and would rock the ship jin. doing it. (Applause.) So long as the (shipping, combine had its presciu stranglehold on Now Zealand, there would be trouble. But the Labor party aimed at a. State shipping line. There were many industrial troubles tint -should never lake place, hut in 09 cases 'out, of. 100 the 'economic conditions were jto. blame. HOUSING AND vENSIGNS.

1 There was in New Zealand a shortage 'of 23,000 houses. Rents were enorjmously high, and workers in big towns (were paying out. of jo4 a week as much at 32/6 to £2 for reiitl He thought that hp working man should have to pay mute than one day’s wages a week for rent. (Applause.) The house shortage was due to the, Igck of ability on. the part of the Reform Government. Day by day houses were, r,efusqd.’ to families; because there were chitdrep, and that wa» wrong, (bfear, hear.) The Labor party planned a. vigorous house-building policy. All that was required was capability to organise the financial side of the matter. The Labor party -would make it a criminal offence for a house owner to refqse to let'his house because there were children.

Prior, to tlie introduction of the old age pensions it had been said that they would destroy the independence of the people. Under Labor party, pressure the old age pension had been increa'scd to 15s a w.oek. They, said that the’ country waft wealthy enough to afford to pay sufficient to provide the old people with standards of decency in their declining years. They would not hesitate to raise the pension to 2os. a week. They would aim at increasing the widows’ pensions to the same rate as was paid to the widows of those who died during the influenza epidemic. The party also would remove other anomalies in the pension, system, and, increase the pensions to the bljnd. They would give mofnerhood endowments, in order to help! those with larger families. The Arbitration: Uourtf 'hqsed, iis wages on a.'family of two.. The Labor party aimed at pay. ing: ail endowment of 10S' per’ eaqh child, beyond- tivo, payable, to tlje, mother until each’," chilqi wait 16 yqajvs of; age.’ ’ While the Prime Minister.''protested that wage's woufcl hot be rcdupecL thq IVlimsler of, Labbr never said a, wqrd beqauee ho knew, what l£ul been in a re-, cent qepqrt to, tfie Minister.. They also proposed to increase workers’ compensa-, tions, and- to make industry, pay full wages while, workers wer,o sick. Tlfe Reform party was making a host of g'rb : . mises similar to death-beef repentances. Tliose wlio voted tor the Reforiq pqrtv, should rememer their past performances. • Mr. Holland then outlined the Labor policy in connection with a State hank, criticising the Reform party’s method of (handling, the country’s debt. He would; finally appeal to them to remember that* there was a heavy responsibility on the (electors. No party could rise higher than the intellectual level of its suppor;ters, and they would have to set that ■standard;

I Dealing with Labor’s opponents in the 'Gisborne contest,' lie said that no one took Mr. Lysnar seriously—at least, they hover did in the House. (Laughter.) ‘They had. a good, deal of time for him they got a lot of. fun out ‘of him. They took no notice of any remarks he made against them ■personally, because he had npade (those charges against all sorts of (people. Ho had made the most serious (charges against the Minister of Agrb. (culture that had ever Been levelled ‘•against him. The Minister was a part of the Government and received, the 'loyal support of the Government. In making, charges against him, Mr, Lysnar. Therefore..made charges against, the Government, and yet lie came forward and (pledged, himself to follow them. He believed that Mr Lysnar had- many grievances and needed time to completely deIvelop them. He would suggest that the give Mr Lysnar three year’s, tree, of Parliament in which to consider all his grievances.' (Laughter and applause.) The two parties were a'6 far as the Poles asunder, and young man who were looking forward, to new times and new elements in politics should cast their minds hack to the two opposing forces in the old days. The Labor party was the 'legitimate successor of the Liberals such, ias Ballance and Seddon. When they .read outpourings and. vituperation about •himself they should remember that similar attacks had been hurled at Ballance and Seddon. In the old days their be-, jliefs had been called socialism, but if they read Mr Lysnar’s speeches they ;Would see that he had got some new. terms. (Laughter.) Op the day that the Labor party received the people’s .mandate to'take over the Treasury benches, the new laws would be written in the interests of all. , (Applause.) Mr Oolemari said that- ho had great pleasure in moving a hearty vote of thanks to, the speaker, who had given one of the ablest addresses it was possible for a man to deliver. They had heard some of the, things which Mr Lysj par had said of Mr Holland, apd had expected a “venomous man with Horns.” (Laughter.) They had help'd a statesman, and that they must admit whether they believed in the Labor policy or not. He had nofc 'tho slightest doubt that they also had' heard the remarks of a future Prime Minister of New Zealand. (Cheers.) The motion was seconded by Mr C. E. Bickford, and carried with acclamation. In returning thanks, Mo; Hpllanfl; expressed his appreciation of, the. the Mayor in presiding at the meeting, (aild thanked him for his various qqurtIcsies,

Customs and Excise. , Income tax £ s. d. £ s. d. 1918 29 3 V ... 45 10 0 1919 29 14 10 ... 45 1 1 1920 31 18 2 ... 39 3 10 1921 39 10 7 ... 37 3 8 1222 33 18 7 ... 36 13 5 1923 43 1 0 ... 24 7 8 1924 48 6 8 ... 22 17 2 1926 52 8 0 ... 21 12 0