TASK OF UNITED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 492, 23 October 1928, Page 12

TASK OF UNITED

LIBERAL GIANTS RECALLED FIGHT FOR EDEN SEAT CANDIDATE AT EPSOM '•What has been accomplished by the Liberalism of the past can be repeated to-day by the pillars of the new Liberalism in the United Political Party.’’ This is the claim of Mr. A. J. Stallworthy, United candidate for the Eden seat, who in opening his campaign at Epsom last evening recalled the political giants of the past, and revived the shadows of their departed glory before about 100 electors. Mr. Stallworthy, whose service on the City Council was eulogised by the chairman, Mr. G. H. White, J.P., said the Eden district was a new one, and there was no member representing it in Parliament at the moment. The political track had to be blazed, therefore, and he felt he had a claim equal to that of any elector or any contemporary candidate. Tie was conscious of the solemn responsibility he essayed when ho stood for Parliamentary honours, and fully realised that he could not afford to be careless about representative government. Tie would ask no man or woman for a vote, but he offered his time and resources for the welfare of the people “I ask you for nothing except your confidence,” he said INTO THE PAST Turning to politics, the candidate called the attention of his audience to the achievements of Seddon, Ballance, Mackenzie, and Ward in the political past of New Zealand. In the day when these legislative giants had risen

above the heads of pessimism and poverty, the Reformers said they could not save the country—that the country could not be retrieved from its misfortunes and its troubles. But Sir Joseph Ward, playing his part in a proud record of Liberal statesmen, had been the instrument in reducing the rate of interest on rural holdings, and upon workers’ finance for houses, from 10 per cent, and 12 per cent, to 4 per cent. The Advances to Settlers Department had been the creation of his brain, and over £40,000,000 had been lent through it—at tremendous benefit to the people, and without the loss to the country of one penny. The electors had been guessing for months as to the intentions of the United Party, and the suggestion had been made that it could not formulate a policy. This had been refuted, and the policy of the organisation had been described by a Minister of the Crown, the Hon. K. S. Williams, as a bombshell falling into the Reform camp. ‘‘No doubt it will wake some of them up,” Mr. Stallworthy added. CAUSES OF DEPRESSION In defending the political genius of the party leader, the pandidate claimed for him the only effective land policy the country could boast, while his administrative capacity before and during the war was too well known to require detailed elucidation. ITe had when he went out of office left a surplus of £17,000,000 for the use of the people in New Zealand. To refer to his leadership, therefore, as “barren,” was not just. Ministers of the Crown had denied tho existence of unemployment in New Zealand, but the statistics were an effective and a poignant answer to this. These figures, however, were futile as a comfort to hungry men and women. Relief payments were increasing annually—through both the hospital boards and the Treasury—and had reached a figure which the country could not afford. The Prime Minister had shown a belated ability to handle the situation by appointing, on the last day of last session, an Unemployment Committee —after the problem had been acute for well over a year, and when the Government required the votes of the people to return it to power. It had been claimed that European conditions had caused unemployment here in a reflex way, but the candidate essayed to refute that by saying that markets were good overseas and produce prices were high, every ounce of our goods having been disposed of satisfactorily. The people must look closer to home, therefore, for the cause. This, in Mr. Stallworthy’s opinion, was easy to fix. The Government had been begged not to buy land at the impossible prices which prevailed at the boom period. The result of its failure to heed the cry was that £5,000,000 had been given by way of rebate in rent, and £1,000,000 conceded by way of interest from the farms of soldiers who were placed upon these high-priced holdings after tho war. The Dairy Export Control Act, with its compulsory clauses, had cost the country £2,000,000, and reflected directly upon employment, while over-immigration had played a substantial part in the deplorable state of affairs. PARTY’S AIMS Judged upon this plank alone, the Government was seriously indicted, because statistics showed that in the past year or two, more people had been imported than the country possessed unemployed at the present time. “The country was over-governed and over-taxed,” Mr. Stallworthy went on, and crime was on the increase. Tlis -party proposed to remedy this, and would introduce an effective land settlement policy upon the group system with liberal State assistance, as well as encouraging upon practical and comprehensive lines the absorption by various industries of the Dominion’s youth. Agricultural training for boys and girls would form the basis of a greater knowledge of rural callings, while the assistance gained from the State would enable them to carry on and make the holdings their own. Good roads and improved social services were also advocated by liis party. In respect to finance, Mr. Stallworthy supported the proposal of Sir Joseph Ward to raise £70,000,000 for developmental and constructional work. It would be a profitable and a wise investment. He contrasted this proposal with what he termed “the muddling policy” of the Government, under whose regime £75 millions had been mis-spent, over the past eight years—£so,ooo,ooo

increase in public debt, £17,000.000 left by Sir Joseph Ward, and £6,000,000 written off from soldiers' farms, and £2,000,000 as the cost of unemployment. Mr. Stallworthy vigorously agreed to pit Sir Joseph Ward against the present Prime Minister, Mr. Coares, as a financial administrator, and declared that, whatever might be said, the United Party could—and would—accomplish what it had undertaken in its policy. At the conclusion the candidate was accorded a vote of thanks and confidence.