LABOUR IN POLITICS

Southland Times, Issue 19508, 6 May 1922, Page 5

LABOUR IN POLITICS

ADDRESS BY MR HOLLAND VOTE OF CONFIDENCE CARRIED An audience that filled the stalls in the Grand Theatre, and numbering about 600, assembled last night to hear an. addres.by Mr H. E. Holland, M.P., the leader of the Labour Party. The audience was evidently sympathetic to the speaker and expressions of approval frequently met his remarks. The chair was taken by Councillor T. D. Lennie in the absence of the Mayor, who was unable to be present owing to an illness in his family. In introducing the speaker, Councillor Lennie said that they must admire Mr Holland for sticking up for what he thought was right whatever might be their politics. On coming forward to speak Mr Holland was loudly applauded. He explained that he was there to speak as the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party which, being new, was liable to all the misconception and misunderstandings which beset things new. On travelling about he was struck by the extraordinary opinions held by people and the press regarding his Party and regarding himself. There were three recognised parties in the House—the Reform Party with between 40 and 50 representa tives in the House, but entitled to only 26 if proportional representation were in force, the remnants of the Liberal Party, an offshoot of which was what was called the United Liberal Labour Progressive Party, then there was the Labour Party with only eight members, but if there had been proportional representation there would have been 19 or 20 members in its ranks. The Liberal Party was the official Opposition but the real Opposition, was the Labour Party. The Liberal Party never knew when it had to go into the Government lobbies and vote against the labour men, and it was really no opposition. His Party had a social objective. The finest plank in their platform was proportional representation With it the Reform Party would have had 26, the Liberals 22 or 23, and Labour 19 or 20 members, and the Independents would have stood pretty much as at present. And they asked for the Initiative and the Referendum, holding that instead of an unelected House voting the legislation of an elected House, the supreme power of veto should be vested in the people by way of the Initiative and the referendum, many of the Upper House members consisted of old gentlemen who had been unable to get into politics by the front door, and it was these men who had decided that women should not be allowed to sit with them. The Labour Party held that the woman was entitled to have a voice in making the laws that determined collective morality. There was nothing in life adversely or beneficially affecting men that did not affect women in the same way. The Labour Party stood for equal political and social rights for women. There was an Upper House of 110 members without one representative of labour among them, yet the Labour Party had polled 128,000 votes at the last election, remarked. Mr Holland in arguing for the abolition of the Legislative Council Coming to the question of immigration, Mr Holland made it clear that his party did not object to men coming from (rther countries, but they did object to the Government entering upon a policy of bringing thousands of people to New Zealand at present, many of them with no work to go to. He and his fellow labour membere had had the experience of immigrant after immigrant going to them with their story, showing how they had been unable to get work though they had been enticed towards New Zealand by all manner of advertisements that made of this country a seeming Paradise. Mr Holland went on to tell of a placard shown him by a recent arrival which was intended to lead the tenant fanner of England to leave home and set his feet on the road to prosperity im mediately. He declared that matter was going into the English papers stating that three roomed cottages could be had in Wellington for 8s lid per week, He had not heard of them. While unemployed were tramping the roads in New Zealand the Labour Party held that it was not fair to th® workers of New Zealand nor to the workers of England to encourage men to come here. The Labour Party was prepared to support an immigration policy where every man was guaranteed a home and employment.

After a brief reference to the inadequacy of the national statistics, Mr Holland said that in 1914 it was shown that 150,000 people owned land of any sort and 450,000 people had no homes of their own. He also gave a big list of figures dealing with the land tax and other taxes paid stating that boiled down that they showed that a mere hatful of the people owned the land of the country and even they were mortgaged up to the hilt. He had heard arguments that what the farmers were up against was high wages, but he thought that the real load was the mortgage for which the consumers had to pay from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000, per year in interest. Mr Holland read notes taken from a report of a dairy farmers’ union in the Taranaki district, the examples being all of cases where interest on mortgages almost equalled or exceeded working expenses on the farm. The position was that, though trying to pay the inter* est rates men got behind on their other accounts and were sold up. The Labour Party objected to any system of land speculation. He always looked in the papers for land agents’ advertisements wherever he went and saw columns and columns of them. He was not attacking land agents as individuals, but it was the system with which he found fault. Some one must pay for the agents and these advertisemente—costing the people probably £2,000,000 a year. The Labour Party would control all land transactions through the Government Lands Department, and use and occupancy of land would be the only grounds on which a man could retain it. A revaluation of the land was needed—some land in New Zealand had not been valued for ten years. The State would be the only purchaser of land, but it would have to pay the valuation placed on it for taxation purposes. And, before people were asked to settle in any part the place should be roaded and the land cleared. As to marketing of produce, the Party proposed to set up central markets controlled by the State where the net proceeds would be returned to the producers. The speaker, in this connection, referred to some instances of exorbitant middle profits, mentioning that in Raratonga when he was there the natives were obtaining threepence a dozen for oranges selling at threepence each in Auckland. They would eliminate the middleman who was largely parasitic. Dealing with finance, Mr Holland claimed that nationalisation of industries was an intellectual and economic road to Socialism. One erf the first steps a Labour Government would take would be the nationalisa tion of the banking institutions. The na tional debt was over £206.000,000 and every year the people paid £10,000,000 in interest and sinking fund, —a great part of it free from income tax—and £5,000,000 of this was caused by war expenditure and a handfull of money lenders who had loaned their money were pocketing this sum while the myriads of sufferers through the war were collecting £1,250,000 in pensions. He mentioned that the Labour Party, if in power, would see that every promise made by the National Government to soldiers and their dependents was carried out (Applause) Reverting to the question of finance, he said that £100,000,000 had been borrowed for war purposes and even if this was paid back in 40 years (as Sir James Allen eaid) they would have paid back £300,000,000 in interest at 4j per cent, free of income tax — equal to 7 per cent in the larger amounts. During the war period the accumulated private wealth of New Zealand had increased by £200,000,000 and he could not but conclude that £100,000,000 of this represented profiteering. Very often he was accused of being disloyal and the people who so accused him were often those who had pro jitotrsd tU Naw Zealand was qqc

of the few countries, to take an instance, in which scheelite was mined. Prior to the war, Germany wa® the only customer and she obtained it at £lO5 per ton, but the average price to England during the war was £2OO per ton and the mine owners* action was endorsed by the loyal National Government. Mr Holland went on to speak of the arrest of the miners’ leaders in the early days of the war when a strike was supposed to be under organisation. Yet the wool kings were not arrested when they refused to supply Britain except at" their own price. And Mr Massey had informed the meat people that they would have got more for their meat if the Argentine had not been in competition with them. Dealing further with the relations between Capitalists, Mr Holland referred briefly to the rise in miners’ explosives declaring that the firm with the monopoly was concerned in an arrangement between various firms all over the world. During the War the British had used a time fuse the patent for which was held by Krupps and whey had paid the holders of the patent a royalty of three shillings on every fuse used. The Germans had used a machine gun of which the British held the patent and for every gun used a royalty of six shillings was prid. As a way to obviate expensive money Mr Holland advocated a State Bank so that it would no longer be necessary to pay the bank’s profits out of every transaction that occurred, almost. A State bank would exist not for profits but to give the people cheap money. Touching on the work of last session, Mr Holland said that the Labour Party was not in favour of the remission in land tax. .Xs to the income tax. the payers of this got 5 per cent remitted if they paid all within a certain time. The remissions were made to the men with the big and small incomes and he understood that about £500,000 was held back. Then Mr Massey told the House that he had nothing to go on with The Customs Bill was introduced which taxed the farmer’s implements, taking back from him tenfold the remission he had received on his land tax. Mr Massey showed budgets that gave him ample money at reserve, a cash surplus of £6,000,000, but when it came to using this amount it was not there, and down went the wages of the Public Service. First of all the wages of members of Parliament were reduced; that was a camouflage to cover the wages reductions in the Public Service and those reductions were camouflage to cover reductions in the wages of the general workers. And those reductions were now taking [dace. He had predicted that if th® New South Wales Labour Party was defeated there would be a big drop in wages and that was now taking place. He predicted that Mr Massey would not find it necessary to make the third cut in the wages of the public servants until after the election when, unless the Labour Party had made a substantial advance at the polls, there would probably be a move to extend the life of Parliament to five years; then would begin an assault on the workers’ wages that would be memorable. Referring to the coal importations, he arid that the Government was making a strong attempt to smash the unions’ organisations by putting the members out of work by bringing in great quantities of highly priced inferior coal from all over the world. He went on to speak strongly of the miners’ living conditions, declaring that the man who ordered a social service by producing coal were entitled to as good a house as anyone else. —(Applause) . In conclusion, Mr Holland took his heazers briefly through the earlier stage® of New Zealand politics, referring in eulogistic term® of the work done by Messrs Ballance and Seddon. He declared that Mr Massey was doing his best to undermine the work done by those giants of democracy. On resuming his seat Mr Holland was loudly applauded He then answered a number of questions. Asked to say something about the action of the Government in connection with th® Post and Telegraph officers, Mr Holland said that if the Government knew it wm wrong for the Association to affiliate with the Alliance of Labour, it had no right to advise th® officers to vote—it had expected them to vote down the proposal. He did not know what would happen in connection with the Post and Telegraph Association, but he did know that the Labour Party would insist on every body of working men having the right to take any legal action. If Mr Massey used threats of intimidation, he would probably find that they would be used as a club against him. He hoped that the Post and Telegraph Association would link up and that every other body of workers would follow.

Asked why farmers called him “Red Fed,” “labour extremist,” etc., Mr Holland said that he did not object to the terms. The only people worth while were those who were extremely sincere. A voice: No, nol Mr Holland: You must speak for yourself, sir. (Laughter). Mr H. J. Farrant, in the course of s few brief remarks complementary to the members of the Labour Party, moved a vote of thanks to Mr Holland and of confidence in the platform of the Labour Party. The motion was carried unanimously amidst cheers.