LABOUR PARTY

Southland Times, Issue 20613, 11 October 1928, Page 8

LABOUR PARTY

THE MASTERTON SEAT MR HOLLAND OPENS CAMPAIGN REFORM GOVERNMENT CRITICIZED (Per United Press Association.) Masterton, October 10. The first shot in the Labour 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 very little was heard from political leaders in this country and the community went mostly by what it read of their words. Masterton was honoured by the fact that Mr Holland had chosen Masterton as the place wherein to open Labour's political campaign. Mr Holland said what would be the greatest political battle in the history of New Zealand was about to take place in the respective constituencies in New Zealand. He believed that real contest would be between the two main parties, Labour and Reform. Whoever were opposed to the existing Government must cast their votes for the official Opposition. The days of the old Liberal Party, great as its part in past politics had been, had passed and Labour had displaced old Radical parties. Proceeding, Mr Holland said that 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 9 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 Party Promises. With regard to the Reform Party and its failure to carry out its promises, Mr Holland said that the Reform Party had promised the farmers to get back freehold. They had got mortgage instead. The Reform Party had promised legislation against aggregation, whereas the present conditions in New Zealand were a record of aggregation, in support of which he quoted figures to show that land wealth was concentrated in the hands of 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 over £10,000.000. Ever since the speaker had been in the House and farmers had clamoured of rural credits and agricultural banking reform, the Government had responded with legislation which had proved of no value whatever. The Labour Party had made it clear that the small farmer would not pay 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. Land Policy. Another phase of the Government’s land policy, said Mr Holland, was that legislation which drove settlers off the land. The Government had promised farmers security of their holdings. The Labour Party’s policy must be to keep the man on the land and overcome hug? land gambling operations that had .gone on as shown by land transfers, which since 1912 under the Reform Government, numbered 484,000 equal to three transfers for every land holder in New Zealand. The cost of those transfers had been £25,000,000 and while a number of those transfers had been unavoidable, it was not to be denied that the cost of those transfers added further liability to a man taking over land. Dairy Control. Going on to deal with dairy control, the speaker said that the Government carried a weighty responsibility in the matter of attempting to wreck dairy control or marketing of New Zealand’s primary products. These passed through six or seven hands before they reached the consumer. Cooperative margeting, affirmed by the dairy suppliers’ emphatic vote, was intended to meet the difficulty but Mr Coates and his Government surrendered as soon as the guns of Tooley street thundered and interests of the primary producers were made a matter of secondary consideration. In criticising the earlier rural credits scheme the speaker said that the country had paid £6OOO 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 it did not make more credit available. 'Hie scheme was practically dead. The latest scheme of rural intermediate credits was a different organization altogether. The sum of £9O which the farmer paid was held by the Rural Credits Board as security for the £lOOO loan he obtained. The speaker said that he wished he could borrow something on what he owed. Dealing with interest charges Mr Holland made a charge against the Government that its policy with regard to the Post Office Savings Bank and State Advances had been practically dictated by associated banks and financial institutions of the country, than which, he said, there was no stronger argument for a State bank. Concerning Mr Sterling, General Manager, and his treatment in regard to superannuation the speaker stated that the Government had made legal an illegality because of its weight on the floor of the House. The action of the Government had made it open for railway servants whose time had been broken to claim equal treatment as that accorded Mr Sterling. The speaker said that there had been a certain loss on non-paying railway lines in this country and in criticizing the Government’s system of reckoning, said that there had been a loss of £lO,OOO more than shown. Unemployment. Unemployment, said Mr Holland, had been caused in the past by the Government’s immigration policy and the Labour Party was not prepared to continue immigration when it meant that a New Zealander was to lose his position. The unemployed should be placed in positions to which they belonged and if that were not possible, they should be paid standard rates of wages. The Government pleaded that it had not the money to hand for different work but it could vote £1,000,000 to the Singapore Base scheme which would soon be obsolete. There was no time, concluded the speaker, at which State enterprises were in greater jeopardy than at the present time. The Labour Party’s policy as outlined by the speaker was the devising of a Land Bill to break up big estates, firstly by negotiating and secondly by compulsion with right of appeal in the latter case. If the appeal went against the Government then it would buy land at the figure fixed by the higher tribunal. Labour would grade land tax more steeply to bring about closer settlement and would undertake the work of clearing the land before the farmer went on it. Another part of Labour’s policy would be the setting up of a State bank system, unemployment insurance, invalid pensions, amendment of the Education Act and reorganization of boy conscription, these measures io be introduced before the first three years of Labour office.