ADDEESS-IN-REPL

Southland Times, Issue 18973, 21 June 1923, Page 5

ADDEESS-IN-REPL

DEBATE CONTINUED MR WILFORD’S AMENDMENT (Per United Press Association). WELLINGTON, June 20. At 2.45 p.m. MR WILFORD, the Leader of the Opposition, resumed the Address-in-Reply debate. He declared the speech of the mover of the Address (in showing up the manner in which the Government was wrongly dealing with the land in the King Country), he made stronger condemnation of the Government than had been seen in such speech for many years. The election cry of the Reformers was for more settlement, but official returns showed that aggregation was going on despite the protests cf the press and members of Parliament to the contrary. This was the result of the unattractive policy regarding land settlement. Homes for workers, cheap food and education for the people should at least form the principles of any forward policy. Homes fcr the people should come first, before schools in spite of the statement of one prominent Reformer, who put school buildings first on his platform. Touching on housing, Mr Wilford said he had come across instances wherein people in New Zealand cities were living under conditions sadly approximating those exposed in England by Charles Dickens. He criticised the administration of the Housing and Advances departments and declared that the proposals for meeting the present housing conditions were utterly inadequate. The fact was that the Reform Party was always opposed to the principle behind the. establishment of the Advances Department. It was only the foster parent of the measure. The real parent (the Liberal Party) was the one which should have the task of administering this department. Mr Wilford condemned the trusts and combines which, he declared, controlled building materials and foodstuffs as being responsible for the present conditions governing the people’s living expenses. These trusts and combines were acting detrimentally to the interests of the people and until they were got rid of people would get no relief. Regarding land settlement, the Liberal Party’s policy was to road and settle it. Mr Wilford said the preposition of roads before settlement must be made to give the settler a chance. He condemned the delay in setting up the Main Highways Board and the holding back of the initiation of a forward policy of reading. The Leader of the Opposition then addressed himself to the subject of a State Bank, urging its establishment, and declaring that it was only prevented by big bankers and other financial interests in the country. The Government should push on with the establishment of State industries. Mr Wilford asked the Prime Minister to state to the House what was the agenda for the Imperial Economic Conference. It had been stated in the House of Commons that the Imperial Government hoped the Colonial Governments’ representatives would bring to the conference considered proposals fcr dealing with the matter in the agenda. The House of Representatives was . entitled to know what preferential tariff system the Premier proposed to ask on behalf of New Zealand. Mr Wilford suggested that the Mother Country should give a subsidy on freights on produce from New Zealand to Britain. This would be a really useful form of preference. Mr Wilford in conclusion, urged the revision of the pensions, war and civilian, and the reform of hospital administration, especially in regard to mental hospitals. He moved his amendment as previously telegraphed.

The HON..C. J. PARR, Minister of Education, continued the debate. He said that the Liberal Leader’s remarks contained no real criticisms of the Reform Government. Mr Wilford had envisaged the end of the Reform administration, but the election figures gave no support to this idea. Regarding homes for the people Mr Parr said’that no party had done less in building homes for the people than the Liberal party. Mr Parr said the Government had done much for soldiers in settling them on the Land.

MR ATMORE: “You spent money; that is not settlement.”

MR PARR said that the land report would reveal that the Government intended to do a great deal in the matter of settling lands in the ordinary way. Mr Parr said the Imperial Conference was more important than local matters. Among the matters that might be expected to be considered at the conference was that of the representation of the Dominion in Great Britain, whether a residential Minister should be appointed or the'' High Commissioner given wider powers. The overseas dominions’ share in the formulation of the Imperial foreign polity had also to be- determined. New Zealand should be represented by a man able to speak for unity cf Empire. New Zealand was vitally interested in the British ,naval defence proposals especially as regards the Pacific. He would say that the Finance Minister would ask Parliament for nearly double the naval vote.. Of this amount £lOO,OOO would be offered as New Zealand’s share towards the development cf the Singapore naval base. The Dominion would also continue to maintain its own naval unit and the Chatham would shortly be replaced by a new vessel. The Imperial Conference was going to do much to keep New Zealand a white man’s country and Mr Massey should be sent as the Dominion’s representative. Referring to finance, Mr Parr said that New Zealand’s credit was good and her position sound, as evidenced by the fact that the Prime Minister was able to arrange for the reduction of £2,000,000 in taxation. The reduction in taxation was absolutely necessary since heavy taxation kept up the cost of living. Touching on soliders’ settlement, the Minister said a reduction in valuations was urgently necessary. The housing provision in town and country was also one of the most urgent matters. The best way to deal with the latter problem was not by the Government building houses but providing the worker with money to enable him to do his own building. The Government proposals in this direction, the Minister contended, were more liberal than any similar measure in the world. MR T. K. SIDEY (Dunedin South), said that while he admitted the Prime Minister should, as head of the Government, represent New Zealand at the Imperial Conference, he disputed the necessity for curtailing Parliament and disorganising the country’s business by not allowing the House to sit enuring Mr Massey’s absence. Mr Massey had condemned, a former Premier for cutting Parliament short in similar circumstances, yet he had done the same himself since and proposed to do it again. That meant a rush session and the neglect of the country’s business. Mr Sidey condemned the Government’s failure to amend the Upper House constitution as promised in the Reformers’ platform in 1911. Mr Massey had then advocated an elective Legislative Council as a “reform worth fighting for and every member of Parliament should be pledged to support it.” It was difficult to believe that these words were spoken by the man who was Prime Minister to-day. Mr Sidey complained that though Reform had been in office over eleven years and had abolished the Second Ballot, it had not fulfilled its promise to find sonie system other than the first-past-the-post. Touching on banking, Mr Sidey regretted the absence of any mention in the Speech of an Agricultural Bank, though the Government must recognise its Rural Credits Associations Act was a dead letter. He referred to the assistance rendered to the Australian farmers by the Commonwealth Bank. Mr Sidey also thought the Government should have taken up the whole of the new capital issue of the Bank of New Zealand. He commended the proposal to extend the advantages of the State Advances Department which apparently was intended to supersede the workers’ dwellings scheme. Speaking of the M'ain Highways Board.

Mr Sidey said the people of the South Island were apprehensive as to what their treatment would be. There should have been two boards, one for each Island. Now that the personnel of the board was known, southern apprehensions were renewed and there was a fresh demand for a separate board. If the tyre tax was insufficient he believed motorists would prefer an increase of that tax rather than the imposition of another form of taxation on motors.

Continuing his speech after the dinner adjournment, Mr Sidey said he had frequently commented that there was nothing more remarkable in connection with the Premier’s record than the extent to which he had done the things he formerly condemned. His crowning achievement in this respect was the part he took in the Tauranga and Oamaru by-elections. Grants on the Public Works estimates were formerly condemned as “abominable, humiliating and degrading,” yet the same system continued. Reference was also made by the speaker to election promises which Mr Massey formerly condemned, but during the Oamaru by-election he went into every nook and corner of the electorate and by his presence inviting applications for grants. There had never been so shameless an attempt to bribe a constituency with public money and this from a party which claimed that it was based on purity and by a Premier who got into office on claims of political honesty. Ministerial office might never come to him (Mr Sidey), but he would rather go into private life than to have great opportunities of doing things that had come to the Premier and to have failed so ignominously in fulfilling promised reforms and in living up to his professed ideals. MR HOLLAND complimented the mover and seconder of the Address-in-Reply on the speeches delivered by them, which were marked by a complete absence of vilification of the Labour Party. This was the first time such a thing had happened. He said the Government was being kept in power by two or three members who were elected to support the Liberal Party. That was a contradiction which the House would have one day to deal with, because he held no member could have two personalities. The House would have to deter mine that a member of the Opposition was one who opposed the Government. In that sense the Labour Party and not the Liberal Party was the real Opposition. So far as the speech from the Throne was concerned it was simply full of platitudes. There was nothing to give an idea what the Government thought of the Imperial Conference to which he would refer later. In the meantime he saw no reason why Parliament should not go on sitting dur ing the absence of the Premier, except the dire state of the Reform Party. Comment ing on Mr Wilford’s amendment, he claimed that it was mainly nebulous. What good proposals it did contain were taken from his recent Christchurch speech. He proceeded to criticise individual features of the amendment with a view to showing that they had not lead anyone anywhere. Referring to the mover he commented on what he said with regard to reading settled lands and gave as an instance where re turned soldiers in the Ohingatai district had been vainly appealing for roads which they had not yet got. Dealing with finance, he contended that the ; Premier’s method of paying his money was to give an 1.0. U. and say “Thank God that is paid.” What the Labour Party objected to in the Budget was the toll which was being paid to men who lent money to carry on the war. Honorable members: What would you do ? Repudiate I MR HOLLAND said he would before the session was closed disclose the Labour Party’s financial policy. He was not doing that now. He was condemning the Government’s financial policy. Coming to shipping he was, he said, struck by Mr Wilford’s suggestion that Britain should subsidise freights to the Old Country. That was a proposal which simply meant subsidising private shipping lines, instead of establishing a State line of steamers. One of the most important questions to be discussed at the Imperial Conference was the status of the dominions. As a matter of fact they had not complete control of their domestic affairs. The Imperial Government had the right to veto legislation New Zealand .might desire to pass. That was not generally done, but it could be done. In the safe way wars for New Zealand, were not made in New Zealand, but in London and one of the great changes which must take place was the definition of the status of the dominions, which will give them complete control of their domestic affairs .In this connection the Labour Party contended that New Zealand’s representative should go as a delegate charged to represent the views of the people of the Dominion. The Labour Party was quite in favour of the Prime Minister going to the Conference so that the people might have an opportunity of getting inside information and acquiring some idea of what they were being committed to, but emphatically they said New Zealand’s representative should be a delegate and not a dictator. One of the things New Zealand wanted was a true League of Nations. They also wanted a remission of the Treaty of Versailles, which was economically impossible and every nation in the world was suffering in consequence of it. The Near East question would also come up in the discussion and the Premier should have clear instructions. Under no circumstances should New Zealand be dragged into war in the Near East. When they were on the brink of war not long ago the Premier evidently did not know the Standard Oil and Shell Oil Companies were at the back of Mr Lloyd George’s extraordinary cable calling on the Dominion’s support. He mistook Mr Lloyd George for the Empire and anyone who opposed him was “disloyal” to the Empire. The Labour Party did not wish to disrupt the Empire, but he did wish to say plaintly that the Labour Party insisted in connection with the Imperial Conference that there should be no secrecy, but that all information should be available to the people and Parliament. Secondly that New Zealand should not be committed to any line of policy until that policy had been submitted to and approved by Parliament. If these guarantees were not forthcoming then the House should not consent to the Premier going to the Conference. MR McLEOD (Wairarapa) explained that what looked like aggregation of land was simply the amalgamation of small sections, which after the potash disappeared became too poor to pay. Another course was open. He denounced monopolies but said that there were sometimes business problems which made it difficult to prevent industries falling into the hands of combines. He did not favour a State Bank but urged more complete unity of all parties to increase pensions paid in the Dominion. In like manner he appealed to the country to stand behind the soldier settlers most of whom would pull through if the necessary assistance were forthcoming. The losses would not be anything like as large as was at one time expected. But whatever the losses were it was the duty of the Government and the country to face them. The adjournment of the debate was moved by Mr Isitt and the House rose at 9.34 p.m. till 2.30 p.m. on the following day. A FURTHER AMENDMENT. In the afternoon Mr Ngata moved an amendment to the Address-in-Reply as an addition to the one moved by Mr Nash (that in the opinion of the House, New Zealand should be represented at the Imperial Conference by the Prime Minister), “That the session should not end until Parliament has completed such business as is necessary in the interest of the country.”