“A GREAT CHASM”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6243, 17 June 1946, Page 5

“A GREAT CHASM”

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE VERSUS STATE OWNERSHIP NATIONAL AND LABOUR FAR APART A statement that between the Government members and the Opposition to-day. there was a great ch.asm — they were as far apart as Moscow and London—was made by Mr H. T. Morton, M.P. for Waitemata, in an address at Tauranga. Mr Morton said he felt that they were at the cross-roads in New Zealand to-day, and the election this year was, to his mind, a most important one. He added that h e tried to be tolerant and endeavoured to see some good in “ the other fellow.” Between the two parties to-day, however, there was a wide gap. t Their whole philosophy and outlook were different. The Governmet took the path that everything would ultimately be State-owned, while they on the Opposition benches favoured private enterprise. The National Party’s doctrine, he said, was to give the State the fewest possible things to own and give most things to private enterprise. The overwhelming majority of the people would, he contended, sooner own their own farms and homes Mr Morton stated that he would say emphatically that the soldiers of the last war were much better treated and treated more fairly than were the returned men to-day. After the first world war there was no “ shillyshally ing ” and restrictions facing the returned servicemen as there were to-day, and, if anything, the treatment erred on the side of generosity. ..

The speaker quoted his own case. After returning from the first world war he paid £950 as the full purchase price for a home with the aid given to returned soldiers, and after 25 years that home became his own. Mr Morton instanced the Government’s action in connection with road services. The returned men were not given a chance to go into the road service business, and £he Government was grabbing them all. turned servicemen, he stated, were not getting much of a look in.

He referred to the way monopolies were being built up in the Dominion. The people should see if these restrictions were war-time restrictions or were they going to bind and shackle the people. The speaker expressed the opinion that Labour was going out at the next election right throughout the country. More people had voted against Labour at the last election than those who voted for Labour.

It had been stated, said Mr Morton,that the present Government was a good Government for rrlen, with increased wages and shorter working hours and so forth; but he was told that it had been a poor Government for women. The women of New Zealand were “ fed up to the teeth ” they did not know whether they would find their own store open or shut, and they did not know whether they would get bread. There was an air of uncertainty.

Referring to import licenses, the speaker said that the system was leading to all sorts of abuses. There were something ike six hundred New Zealanders employed in handling these import icenses, and there was, he added, more graft going on in this department than was good for the morals of the country. One of the major tragedies was the tendency to block out Mother England’s goods. He mentioned that vessels had come out in ballast from England because they could not get goods out. There was no more loyal country to England than New Zealand: it was a little England—not a little Russia. Dealing with the Internal Marketing Division, Mr Morton said its aims were to ensure that there was a cheaper, better, and more plentiful supply of certain fruit and vegetables to the tables of the people of New Zealand, and those aims were good. But, he asked, had any one of those claims come to fruition ? No I The people of New Zealand were far worse served since the Government took over than they were before. Instead of being plentiful the position was reversed.

“We have been accused of not having a policy,” Mr Morton continued. But when the people saw the National Party policy in the next few months they wodld see that it had a progressive policy. The speaker referred to the fact that Mr Semple was “ dishing out ” huge sums of money to Auckand, Wellington, and Christchurch, and expressed the view that there was too much concentration on the big cities. More, he contended, should be spent in the country districts. The vast sums of money in London had been built up by the farming industry of this country. It was a poisonous and pernicious doctrine to tell the young people of New Zealand that their future did not lie on the land but in the factories of the cities added Mr Morton when referring to Mr Fraser’s address in his electorate. '

Dealing with the four freedoms—freedom from want freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom of religious opinion—the speaker said those freedoms were enjoyed by all, but a fifth freedom was needed—the freedom of the young people to come and go as they liked. Freedom was wanted from all the many restrictions binding them to-day, and that freedom, he added, the National Party intended to give back to the people of New Zealand.