DOMINION’S WAR EFFORT

Southland Times, Issue 24273, 2 November 1940, Page 6

DOMINION’S WAR EFFORT

Government Taken To Task ELECTION CANDIDATE’S CLAIM I (Special to The Times) NAPIER, November 1. The alleged failure of the Government adequately to handle the war effort and a claim that halfithe amount by which it had overspent its resources would provide an aerial force sufficiently strong to repel any wouldbe invader were the. main points of a speech to electors by Mr C. G. E. Harker, National Party candidate in Waipawa. The meeting was well attended. Mr Harker said the Labour Party’s belief in the socialization of the means of production, distribution and exchange had in the past been treated by many people as mere catch words and not actually destructive to the democratic rights of a free people, but the National Party believed in Government of the people by the people 'for the people and not for a class by a class. Mr Harker added that he considered that the present Ministers were trying to win the war with fine phrases, slogans and wireless propaganda. He demanded that words be translated into action. The Minister of Labour (the Hon. P. C. Webb) had been taking off his hat to miners who were on strike because one of their number had been found guilty of sabotage and properly _ dismissed by the Government. Watersiders had defied the orders of Government commissions and allowed ships carrying sinews of war for the Mother Country to remain lying at the wharves while limited shipping sailed without full cargo. Possibly the Minister feared that if he did not take off his hat these gentry would knock it off for him. The speaker suggested that Mr Webb might spend a little time in the country where he would find an honest week’s work just started after the first 40 hours. MR FRASER NOT SUPPORTED The candidate asked whether it could honestly be felt that everything possible was being done in the war effort. While giving the Prime Minister full credit for doing his best, the speaker suggested that Mr Fraser was not getting all the support he was entitled to expect, even from many of his own colleagues and supporters. Mr Harker commented that the volunteers who had come forward for war service had contained too many old diggers, too many married men and too many rural workers. Conscription was something in the way of a step forward that the people had demanded, but a truly national Government along the lines of the British lead was needed. War work had advanced since the War Cabinet had been formed, but he felt that the people wanted something more.

Mr Harker vigorously attacked the Government’s financial policy and said that if it carried on that way long enough it would have to rob the people by repudiation. Meanwhile it increased the public debt and doubled the taxes. He criticized the growth in Civil Service personnel and contrasted the Government’s promise of workers’ houses at rentals of from 12/6 to 15/- a week with the actuality of houses for “favoured and selected ones” at an average rental of from 25/- to 37/6 a week, which compelled the average workman to go to private enterprise for his accommodation.

Finally, Mr Harker - advanced a progressive land policy to use idle land and to make a productive asset of even small blocks near - towns. The National Party, he said, had definite plans to that end.