CRITICISM OF MR HOLLAND

Southland Times, Issue 25504, 26 October 1944, Page 3

CRITICISM OF MR HOLLAND

MR THORN SPEAKS AT MOKOTUA The choice in the by-election was between a Government which for nine years had carried the responsibility for the control of the Dominion’s affairs and a party whose leader had stated that during the next two years it would prepare itself to assume responsibility, said Mr James Thorn, Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister, when speaking in support of Mr Leo S. O’Sullivan, the Labour candidate in the Awarua by-election, at Mokotua last night. v Mr Thorn said that if the electors would recall how Mr Holland had run away from his responsibility when he held the office of Minister in charge of War Expenditure in the War Administration they would have no difficulty in coming to a wise decision. On that occasion Mr Holland had shown that he was much more intersted in perambulating the country with political stunts calculated to make political capital out of the embarrassments with which the war had confronted the Government than he was in carrying responsibility and facing up to the Dominion’s serious problems. Referring to Mr Holland’s use of the term socialism to stigmatize the Labour Government, Mr Thorn said that the same type of reactionary described Seddon’s Government as “the seven devils of socialism.” Yet it was this Government which by its humanitarian legislation had won for New Zealand the high regard of social reformers throughout the civilized world. Mr Holland had actually described the Social Security Act as “State socialism” but he now accepted the act and said he would’'not abolish it. Hence any of his supporters who supported itmight reasonably be placed in the socialist category. RESERVE BANK NATIONALIZED Mr Thorn said that the first Act of Parliament for which the Labour Government was. responsible was the nationalization of the Reserve Bank. The bank was then used immediately to implement the guaranteed price system and to finance the Government’s house construction policy. The guaranteed price policy supnlanted a system of fluctuation and insecurity. Any system was stupid and absurd if, as had happened, the dairy farmers, having more than doubled their production in the 10 years period before 1935, found themselves receiving in the year at the end of the period £1,600,000 less than they received in the year at the beginning of it. Nothing like this was possible under the guaranteed price system, which had given the farmers stability and prosperity. The recent addition to the price and the increased pay-out last year as the result of the agreement reached by the Dairy Industry Costs Adjustment Commission was indicative of the generous spirit with which the Government had administered the system. Mr Thorn also spoke of housing and social security. At the end of his address Mr Thorn was accorded a vote of thanks.