THE PATEA SEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1925, Page 2

THE PATEA SEAT.

MR. CORRIGAN AT HAWERA. THE NATIONALIST CANDIDATE. GO VER N M ENT CRITICISED. (’From Our Own Reporter,) Hawera, Oct. 7. The Nationalist Party’s attitude towards the problems of the country and the aims of Mr; J. R. Corrigan in pursuance of his Nationalist candidature for the Patea seat, were put before an overflowing audience at the Grand Theatre last night by Mr. Corrigan, who was given a very attentive hearing throughout his address. At the outset Mr. Corrigan urged the whole of the public to take an interest in the country’s affairs at the present time, and bespoke for his opponent a fair hearing. He had frequently been asked to give a post-sessional addrese, but he had been too busy to cover an electorate comprising over fifty centres wit*h post-sessional addresses. When elected three years ago he had said he would follow no man blindly, but he had pledged himself to vote against the Massey Government on a no-confidence motion. He looked at any measure, not front the party point of views but ’in the interests of the whole of the people, and he could not be accused of ever having broken his pledges. The fusion negotiations were treated at length. When the Reform Party found they had not a w r orking majority after the last election they made overtures to <the Liberals for the formation of a National party. A conference was held, but nothing came of it because Mr. Massey wished to break the record in the term of Premiersliip held by Mr. Seddon. The Liberals agreed to try to keep him in office providing he did not bring forward any contentious legislation. An incident was quoted to show that the member for the Bay of Islands had reminded the Prime Minister in the House that lie was tho pebble that was keeping the Prime Minister on the beach. FUSION FAILURE. Everyone knew the Government was weak, continued the speaker, and it was almost impossible to keep it together while it had such weak supporters. The fusion negotiations were explained in detail, documents and statements being produced to show .that it was not the demand for portfolios by the Liberals that brought about the failure, but the insincerity of the Reformers from the very beginning. Had Mr. Coates made the statement at the beginning that he made at the end of the negotiations the conferences would never have been held. At the end, the Liberals, not to be daunted, decided to form a National Party and go to the country on it. Their aim was to get a trulv National Party free from party hias if possible, because they knew what party bias led to, and they hoped the people of New Zealand would be wise enough to see that it was in the best interests of the country. Mr. Corrigan urged the reform of the Legislative Council on the grounds that its cost .was a big tax on the country and that its existence 'was not warranted by the work it did. Its work could easily be done by a supervising committee. All the Council did during the last session was to pass four Bills. It was a ridiculous economic waste that should not be. The reform of the Council was one of the Reform 'Party's planks of 1911. Four members of the Reform Party at the present time were not seeking re-election and would be elected to the council, namely the Hon. S. R. Rhodes, the Hon. D. H. Guthrie, L. M. Isitt and Mr. G. Witty. To emphasise the costs of the present Government, Mr. Corrigan said that the total cost of the High Commissioner’s office in 1916 was £18,228, while in 1925 it had increased to an increase of £2so' per cent. The railways revenue from 1924 to 1925 increased by only £.150,000, and yet the expenditure over the same period increased from £5,153,000 to £5,036,000. The P. and T. revenue increased in the same year by £25,042, but the expenditure increased by £'295.000. They could not keep going at that rate. General administrative costs had increased from £(10,340,000 in 1912 to £27,390,000 in 19<2i5, an increase of over £17,000,000. Of this war pensions and interest on w’ar loans had .cost £5.250.000, but this still left an increase of £11,800.000. TIME FOR ECONOMY. When these figures were studied it would be realised why the country could not get money for the development of primary products and other necessary industries. The time was ripe when New Zealand should have a very economic policy or it would soon have no security left. The national debt in 1904 was £57,000,000, in 1914 it was £95,000,000, and in 1925 it had grown to £238,000,000, an increase since 1914 of £76,000,000, accounted for by the war, and then another £57.000,000 since the Reform Party came into power in 1912. The rate of borrowing from 1920 to 1925 was £5,000,000 annually. The local bodies’ debt in 1904 wms £10,000,000; in 1914 it was £24,000,000; in 1920 it was £30,000.000, and in 1925 it had jumped up to £47.000,000. It was therefore time even the local bodies “took a pull” and got down to an economic basis.• ■ •. ■ The population was not increasing at tho same rate as the borrowing. At the present time New Zealand had a mortgage of £*l72 per head on every man, woman and child, and with the local bodies’ debt another £29 per head was added. Departmental expenditure had increased from £11,800,000 in 1914 to £27,399,000' in 1925, an increase of £15.570.000 in eleven years. For th* year 1926 departmental expenditure was estimated at £29,000,000. They could not go on like this and keep the country financial. Last year they went on the market for a loan of £7,000.000 and only 15 per cent, was subscribed. The reason was obvious. The moneylenders looked for the beet security, and on inflated values the security of New Zealand was £500,000,000, of which a half was mortgaged, which made the security weak. Now the Government had to borrow money in its own country, and this meant diverting money which might otherwise go into more useful channels. Ninety-eight per cent, of New Zealand’s wealth came from the land, and therefore it was necessary to have a land policy to bring about prosperity. At the present time .there was no pol- ' icy at.alL, The soldier settlement

ness -was scandalous. The Hon. A. D. McLeod, when speaking at Hawera, did not tell the public that the Government had bought £70,000 worth of land at Motueka for soldiers and that there had not been a single applicant for this land. This wa« not an isolated ease. At Paparoa the Government was transferring &000 acres of land bought for soldiers to th© Forestry Department for re afforestation. In one case the Government turned down an offer of an estate for £BOOO and the next year bought the same estate for £27,000. In the meantime a syndicate had bought the land for £BOOO, and sold it to the Government for the figure named. In Taranaki he only knew of one settlement that was successful, that being the Parkes Estate, at Kaponga. Put a poor soldier on poor land and he would be poor all his life. Mr. Corrigan went on to refer to the Lysnar charges and the cost of the commission that followed, but said that the commission was debarred from inquiry into whether Vestey’s was or was not a trust, the very essence of the charges. The recent railway commission had been paid £BOOO merely to endorse the report of Mr. Hiley submitted to the previous session by Mr. Coatee, and now 7 the Government had passed a- vote of £B9O -in connection with the income tax on the commission’s fees because they were to be free of tax. THE SEAMEN'S STRIKE. Mr. Corrigan urged a system ol paying a proportion of the profits of public services to public servants after interest had been paid as a means of increasing interest and efficiency in the work. Trade within, the Empire to assist Britain to compete against foreign countries and to overcome the Communistic element were strongly urged, and the seamen’s strike was instanced to emphasise the point. Unless drastic action were taken the Communists would cut right into the arteriee of trade and there would be nothing for it but revolution. This showed how necessary it w’as to support the Empire, and try to build it up. The labour unions did not look upon the position as they They thought that if they got good w 7 ages that wae everything. It did not matter to the employer what wages he paid provided he got commensurate service in return, and in this connection Henry Ford’s business was instanced. He urged workers to make sure that awards would benefit them before demanding them, and in this connection sho'wed that the recent dairy factory employees’ aw’ard actually resulted in the minimum rates being fixed at considerably below the wages being received by the employees of the Hawera Dairy Company, for instance. If some individual factories paid more than aw 7 ard wages it led to trouble with the employers’ union. Further references were made to the Labour Party’s policy, In pursuance of which Mr. Holland had said that interest was something for nothing, a theory which w ? as impossible in practice. If a hard working farmer saved a few pounds was he not entitled to interest on it? Referring to the question of religious exercises in schools Mr. ’Corrigan expressed himself as in favour of the Nelson system, under which any person wishing to give religious instruction in a school could secure permission from the school committee. Under the Bill lately before the House the teacher would not be allowed to explain the Bible to the pupils after reading it. Investigation into the costs of Nauru phosphate and the devolepment of the New Zealand coalfields in place of the importation of coal were also urged, and the speaker concluded

by sta-ting that the iN'atlonalist Party wae out to bring about the reforms he had mentioned. He appealed for unity so that the Empire need not be frightened of the Comuninfota in the fight lor constitutionalism against Communism, Question time was noisy and exciting, but Anally a resolution supporting the Nationalist candidature was overwhelmingly carried after the defeat of an amendment, aa already reported, expressing a lack of confidence in the Nationalist Party,