LABOR’S POLICY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16772, 11 October 1928, Page 7

LABOR’S POLICY

THE CAMPAIGN OPENED ME. HOLLAND AT MASTERTON GREAT BATTLE PREDICTED. (Per Press Association.! MASTERTON, last night. The first shot in the Labor campaign was fired at Masterton to-night by Mr. H. E Holland, Leader of the Opposition, who was greeted enthusiastically by a crowded hall. In opening the meeting, the Mayor, Mr. T. Jordan, said that too little was heard from the political leaders in this country, and the community went mostly bv what it read of their words. Masterton was honored by the fact that Mr. Holland had chosen Mast «r----ton as the place wherein to open Labor’s political campaign. Mr. Holland said what would be the greatest political battle in the history of New Zealand was about to take plape in the respective constituencies in New Zealand. He believed that the real contest would be between the two main parties, Labor and Reform. Whoever was opposed to the existing Government must cast his vote for the official Opposition. The day of the old Liberal party, great as its part in past politics has berti, lmd passed, and Labor had displaced the old Radical parties. Proceeding, Mr. Holland said he wished to draw attention to the lack of business methods in - Parliament. No business man would conduct his affairs as the business of Parliament was conducted. The speaker’s experience was that to keep up with'events in the House he must be back at £) a.m., after sitting until 4 a.m. There should be fixed hours for Parliament, he asserted, because members were often asleep in their seats. REFORM’S PLEDGES. With regard to the Reform Party and its failure to carry out its promises, Mr. Holland said that the Reform Party had promised farmers, among other things, the freehold of the land. Had the farmers got that freehold, he asked. They had got a mortgagehold instead'. The Reform Party had promised legislation against aggregation, in support of which he quoted figures to show that the- land wealth was concentrated in the hands of a comparatively few people in New Zealand* He asserted that land values had to be taken into consideration, and said that the. increase in the number of mortgages under the Reform Government constituted a stranglehold on the farmers of the Dominion. One of the hardest factors the farmer was up against was the high rate of interest, which worked out to about £19,000,000, of which the farmers’ share was fiver £10,000,000. Ever since the speaker had been in the House, the. farmers had clamored for rural credits and agricultural banking, and the Reform Government had responded with legislation which had proved of no value whatever. The Labor Party had made it clear that the small farmer would not pay the- income tax, but those ‘big landowners who were not sufficiently taxed at present would be made to do so. Because of these large landowners the workers of New Zealand had to pay increased taxation direct and indirect.

A not lie r phase of Die Government's land policy, said Mr. Holland, was that legislation which drove settlers oil the la ad, The Coven'meat had promised farmers the security of their holdings. The Lalior Party’s policy must be to krep-a man on the laud, and overcome huge laud gambling operations that had gone on, as was shown by the land traiisD rs which, since ldO'..’, under the j;,.foitu (.iivernmeiit, numbered -184, tit Ml. |..|ual to three transfers for every land-holder in New Zealatfd. The. cost of those transfers had been £T>,UOO,(mb, and while a number of those transfers had been nun voidable, it was not In be denied that the cost o 1 those transfers added further liability to the man taking over the land. RURAL CREDITS DEAD. doing on to ileal with dairy control, the speaker said the Government carried a weighty responsibility in the matter of the attempt to wreck dairy control or the marketing of New Zealand’s primary products. These passed tl)cough six or seven hands before they readied the consumer. Co-opera-tive marketing, affirmed by dairy suppliers’ emphatic Votes, was intended to meet the dillicully, but Mr. Coates and his Government had surrendered as soon as Die guns of Tooiey street thundered, and Die interests of primary producers were made a matter of seeoudary cousidera 1 ion. In criticising the earlier rural credits scheme, Die speaker said that, the country had paid £OOOO for the report of a commission, which could have been compiled without going out of New Zealand, and which report the Government; did not adopt. the Government's rural credits scheme was not going to help farmers to any degree, as ili did not make more credit available, and the scheme was practically dead. The latest scheme 'of rural credits was a different organisation altogether. The sum of EDO which Die farmer paid Was held by the Rural Credits Board as security for the £IOOO loan lie obtained. The speaker said he wished lie could borrow something on what; lie owed. Dealing with interest charges, Air. Holland made a charge against Die Government Dint Us policy with regard to the Post Office, Savings Bank and State Advances had been practically dictated by the associated banks and the financial institutions of the country; than which, he said, there was no stronger argument for a State Bank. IMMIGRATION OPPOSED, Concerning Mr. Sterling, general manager of [he New Zealand railways, and his treatment in regard to super* a.nnuatibn, the speaker stated that the Government had made legal an illegality because of its weight on the lloor of the House. Tile ael ion of the Government had made it open for railway servants whose, time had been broken to claim equal treatment to that accorded Mr. Sterling. The speaker said there had been a certain loss on nonpaving railway lines in this country, and in criticising the Government’s system of reckoning he said that there had been a loss of £IO,OOO more than was shown.

Uii'einpluyment, said -Mr. Holland, had been caused in the past by Hid Government immigration policy. The Labor Party was not prepared to continue immigration when it meant that a Now Zealander was to lose his position. The unemployed .should be placed in the positions to which they lielonged, and if that were not possible they should be paid the standard rates of wages! The Government pleaded that it had not the money to hand for different works, but it could vote £1,000,000 to the Singapore base scheme, which would soon lie obsolete. There was no time, concluded the speaker, at which State enterprises were in greater jeopardy than at present. The Labor Party’s policy, as outlined by the speaker, was the devising of a Land Bill to break up big estates, firstly by negotiation, and secondly by compulsion, with right of appeal in the latter ease, if the appeal went against the Government, then it. would buy the land at the figure fixed by the. higher tribunal. Labor would grade the land tax more steeply, to bring about closer settlement,'and would undertake the work of clearing land before a fanner went 'on it. Another part of Labor’s policy would be the setting up ol: a Slate Bank, a system of uiiernpl'qyniont insurance, invalid pensions, the anpuidnumj of the Education Act, and the reorganisation of buy conscription, (hose measures to be introduced before the first, three years of Labor’s office.