OPEN LETTERS

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 41, 27 September 1928, Page 8

OPEN LETTERS

MR MoLEOD AND MR POLSON. THE STRATFORD ELECTORATE. To the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister of Lands. Sir, —I have now got you where I want you Mr McLeod. You have delivered yourself into my hands. A fortnight ago you attacked me with at least six delinite and serious charges: (1) That I was a party to and responsible for the political activi-1 ties of the country party. (2) That I had an understanding with Labour. (3) That 1 was using farmers’ union organisers to further ray own political ends. (4) That while pretending to oppose such a step I was dragging the Farmers’ Union into party politics. f 5) That I had turned a somersault over dairy control. (6) That I had been guilty of a plot to prevent the Government establishing closer relations with the Farmers’ Union. Every one of these charges now having been disproved, you abandon them entirely without apology ( or expression of regret and set off on a new attack, as unfortunate, from Reform’s point of view as your first one. You admit your newest charge may also be a canard, and suggest that I should deny it publicly at the first opportunity. Your assurance is exceeded by your impudence. You overlook the point that before ask- ■ ing me to contradict canards of your own, or your friends’ creation, you should first publicly contradict and deny the deliberate and incorrect statements you have yourself made about me. In any case you know that this latest suggestion is as inaccurate as your first one. At practically every meeting I have held I • have stated definitely that the Far-{ mers’ Union is not in party politics, and not in this fight, and that Ii am standing not as President of the Union but as an individual anxious to see his coutry better governed. I have got you, Mr McLeod —Your new charge is no better than the old

ones. But the cream of your attack is contained in your remarks about land settlement. You are th c Minister who has been assuring the country that New Zealand has reached "saturation point” in regard to land settlement, and that “under present economic conditions the chance of successful settlement on the land available, OR; ON LAND 1/HAT is likely can be purchased, is very small.” (The capitals are mine). Having thrown up the sponge yourself you are naturally anxious to discredit anyone else’s land settlement proposals, so you proceed to misquote figures. Fortunately in the Urenui speech you refer to, 1 read from Page 412 of the Year Book exactly as the figures are set out there. I pointed out that excluding holdings of less than one acre, borough areas and communal native lands 43,587,000 acres WAS in occupation, that the area °' f uno cupied land available for settlement .was 18,920,000 acres, that a very

considerable proportion of that was of course not fit for settlement, but that of the occupied area there was at least 16| million acres entirely unimproved. The Year Book gives the total at 24,757,000 acres, but I deducted 8 1-4 million acres as being unusable for any form of improvement and estimated the balance of unused lands at 27,142,000 acres, of which a very considerable proportion from my ow n knowledge °f the Dominion I declared to be suitable for settlement. The point is' that in a country practically the whole of whose exports are primary products, we cannot hope to succeed without pushing on land settlement, the Government has failed to increase land settlement, and noi amount of sidestepping by yourself will camouflage the. fact. Finally, Mr McLeod, you rambled off into a dissertation in finance, where you are less at heme, if that is possible, than you are in regard | to land settlement. You select the, best few years you can discover in the period since this Government has been in power, and endeavour by a misuse of words to create the impression that this country during the period has a smplus of well over £24,000,000. The fact is that even during your carefully selected period 1 wo show a debit not a surplus. The outgoings j from, New Zealand to pay for our j interest overseas and our imports

during your selected years are greater than the receipts from our exports. I will go further and say ‘that even this year when the Usance of exports over impo/ts has been the highest in our history save the one abnormal after the war, the true figures for the Dominion with a careful estimate of the actual year’s operations will show no credit balance. You should consult vour colleagues in the Cabinet be-

fore tackling questions of finance. Lob mo quote tire opinion of Mr Downie Stewart; “I wish to emphasise again the clanger of outside borrowing on a large scale while there are signs that the excess of exports over imports v is not sufficient to cover our charges for interest payable overseas." (Bud--5 get speech, 1925), and also the Hon. ; E. J. Rol’eston, in the same debate: ‘‘We have been borrowing in Lta- ! don at the rate of £5,000,000 a year” (as a matter of fact we borrowed £11,000,000 that year), “which is just about the amount of our interest bill in London, so that in other words we have been paying cur interest bill in London out of our fresh borrowings." Borrowing to pay our interest, Mr McLe.ul, on the admission of one of your own colleagues; need 1 say anymore. The suggestion that I concealed something in refraining from discus-1 sing the number of troops my native country sent abroad during the war is too paltry to discuss. I have never suggested that New Zealand should have spejjt less during the war. What lam contending is that she has spen t too much SINCE) the war and that ‘the huge increase i n debt and in taxation since the war is unjustifiable and loading us with a burden of costs which prejudices development and retards prosperity.—! am, etc., W. J. POLSON. 1 Stratford, September 27, 1

MR MCLEOD’S LETTER. TO Ml?; POLSON. i The open letter to which Mr Poison replies was sent by the Hon. A. ,1). McLeod, inter alia if states: — In several of your Stratford eleei toratq speeches I Pole that you have taken me toi task for stating at Walton. that although you, as Dominion president, of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, were protesting against 'the union as a union taking part in party politics, you must he i ware that not only were branches cl the union, as such, doing this, but also that paid organisers of the union were actively organising against the .Reform Party, thus using Farmers’ Union funds for party purposes. As I said at Waitoa, I have in my possession a large number of letters from various localities assuring me that such was the case, and even Captain Colbeck and Mr Feissf did not delay the truth of my statement when addressing electors ai week or so later at Waitoa. However, if you arq prepared to assure electors and' members of the union that you. know nothing of this being done, of course I will unreservedly accept your denial. I may also state that since speaking at Waitoa, several communications have readied me from the Stratford electorate to the effect that you yourself had privately approached members of the union in that district and pointed out to them their duty to vote for yourself, as to do otherwise would be disloyal to the union of which you are president.

SETTLEMENT OF LAND. There arc, however, still a few points in your Urehui speech upon which further light might he cast, if you are not to b© set do.v.i os a, gentleman whose platform figures are unreliable. (l)You are reported as having said at Uremii that there wei - e in New Zealand no less than 27,140.000 acres of landl unusetl but fit lor occupation. This statement surely required elucidation. The Official Year Look sets down the total area of the Dominion at 66,890,262 acres, of which 43,587,698 are occupied under freehold, Crown or native lease tenures.

(2) In your Urenui speech you pointed to New Zealand’s national debt, and stated that we were, with our exports, failing to pay for our imports and overseas interest, and went on to say that Australia,, although badly governed, was much more prosperous. Ron did not point out that for the six years 1923-28, Now Zealand, after paying for her imports in full from her exports, has had a surplus towards the payment of her overseas interest of well over £24,000,000, while during t.h© same period Australia, has not only failed to pay ijn exports her overseas interest bill, bait has also fallen short of paying for oven her imports with exports, by an amount of £60,000,000 sterling, although she has almost four and ar half times the population of New Zealand.

('.]) Finally, perhaps you did not think it- worthy oi ; notice, when referring: to New Zealand’s national debt, to mention! that New Zealand equipped, paid and sent overseas during the great War one-third more men in proportion to population than didl any of the other Dominions, in whose praise you are so loud.—Yours, oto., A. 1). MbLICOD. Wellington, Sept. 25, 1928.