MR. POLSON’S CAMPAIGN

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1928, Page 5

MR. POLSON’S CAMPAIGN

CANDIDATE FOR STRATFORD CRITICISM OF THE GOVERNMENT. 1 JtfJPI.Y TO MINISTERS’ ATTACK. In continuance of his campaign as an Independent candidate for the Stratford electorate, Mr. W. J. Polson, Dominion president of the Farmers’ Union, addressed a crowded audience in the Stratford Town Hall last night. The Mayor (Mr. J. W. McMillan) occupied the chair and introduced Mr. Polson. Mr. Polson, who was greeted with cheers, emphasised the fact that although he held the position of Dornin ion president of the Farmers’ Union, he was not conducting the campaign as anything but an individual, receiving no assistance from the organisation of the union. The candidate drew attention to the present condition of the Dominion which, he said, was experiencing difficulties due to increasing debt, the drain of the highest taxation in the history of the country, the fact that land settlement was at a standstill, that unemployment was practically permanent, and the cost of living had risen to a height hitherto undreamed of. “Why,” he asked, “should this, be the case in New Zealand when other countries are showing great progress?” New Zealand had an accumulative wealth of over £900,000,000, and, with so many factors in its favour, should be sharing in the wave of prosperity instead of getting further and further behind each year. In the opinion of the speaker, the present Government was responsible. It was without a policy and attempted to placate the public by palliatives, while serving vested interests. - Taxation, said Mr. Polson, was placed on the wrong shoulders, the socalled land policy was an outrage to common sense, and social legislation was chiefly noticeable by its absence. These facts bore upon most thinking men, and, in common with others, he felt forced to enter the arena in defence of the principles of good Government and equitable taxation. Mr. Polson traversed the reasons which led him to -accede to the request of an influential deputation to contest the Stratford seat. These reasons have already appeared in th© News columns. Continuing. Mr. Polson said electors had no doubt noticed in the Press that he had been singled out for attack by Ministers of the Crown. At Waitoa in the Waikato the Hon. A. D. McLeod had attacked him. The Prime Minister had gone at Hamilton to do likewise and the Hon. W. Downie Stewart had similarly sought to bring discredit upon hid in a speech at Cambridge. AFFECTION FOR WAIKATO. “I do not know why there should be this affection for the Waikato, for 1 should think there would be more advantage if the attacks were made in Stratford,” he said. “However, I can assure the Ministers of a warm welcome if they do visit the electorate and carry on their attack here.” Vi hat was the reason of this attitude of hostility on the part of men who were saying little or nothing about the Labour Party or the United Party, but were confining their attacks to an •’unsophisticated farmer?” No doubt the reason was that the speaker was alive to the dangers of the position and had been preaching the need for a better understanding between townspeople and country folk. In most parts of New Zealand he had conducted campaigns, largely at the invitation of Chambers of Commerce, with a view to the establishment of that better understanding. When it was remembered that 98 per cent, of the primary products of the Dominion came from the soil, it was necessary to show townspeople how important ’ it was to stimulate those primary products. He claimed to have been successful in doing this, and also ■to have done something to create the better understanding so necessary to the welfare of the country between capital and labour. In this connection, he was amazed at Mr. McLeod's suggestion that he had entered into an alliance with Labour. If Mr. McLeod meant that the speaker was seeking to establish better conditions for working men as well as for other classes of the community, then he was probably correct, because the speaker had played a not inconsiderable part as chairman of the employers’ section at the recent industrial conference to bring about a better understanding. That conference had achieved some success and it was no fault of the speaker’s that it had not achieved greater successes. It had established the principle of compulsory compensation for all time in New Zealand. It had suggested a means whereby workers might receive a greater share of compensation without it costing the employer any more. WORKERS’ COMPENSATION. In Canada, and particularly in the state of Ontario, State schemes of workers’ compensation were in existence and had proved so successful that they were run at an overhead cost of about 5 per cent., thus not only giving more substantial benefits to the injured, but placing them in the position of being able to provide for rehabilitation. The scheme was to teach a permanently injured worker another trade suitable to the nature of his disability so that he no longer became a burden upon the funds and to himself. That scheme had proved a glorious success, and was being imitated by many other states in the American continent. Moreover, it had the advantage .that no proprietary insurance company could make fabulous profils by the exploitation of injured workers. " In defining the term “fabulous,” the speaker said a profit of 16.79 per cent was usual, and, indeed, some companies exceeded 20 per cent, in profit from this source. The matter of unemployment had also been dealt with by the conference and a recommendation had been made to the Government by the unanimous approval of both employers ami employees urging - the setting up of a proper tribunal to handle the question. This tribunal would make information available so that the unemployment troubles could be handled in a proper way, and it would also be asked to examine a contributory scheme which, in the speaker’s opinion, would work with u good deal of satisfaction. In spite of the fact that both of these important matters had been urged unanimously upon the Government, nothing had as yet been done. At the bidding of vested interests, the Government had declined to intervene to cut down the profits of private insurance companies, and the unemployment question remained, as in the past, a sore upon the conscience of

the public) Arbitration and conciliation had also been dealt with, by the conference, but with less success. At the same time, the candidate expressed himself as being in entire agreement with the suggestion that a council of industries should be set up. If that principle had been adopted, he claimed the conference would have been as unanimous in its approval as it had been upon the other two subjects. The Mond Commission in Great Britain had achieved fame by adopting the same principle which, he said, must make for industrial peace by establishing the better relations between employer and be loyal workmen and sound industries, employee so essential if there were to HEAL THE BREACH! “For reasons such as these I am unpopular with the Government, because the present Government realises that only by maintaining a wedge between town and country interests can it retain office,” said Mr. Polson. “Heal the breach between these forces and vested interests must go down under the combined assault. We must have a better understanding, put taxation on the right shoulders, make wealthy people shearing their 50,000 and 100,000 sheep, at present exempted from income tax, pay their share and enable us to tackle the problem of land settlement, which is a fundamental question in a country extremely dependent upon its calculated to increase production and do away with unemployment.” Contending that New Zealand was a country extremely dependent upon its primary products and that it was only by stimulating production that the stream of wealth that would enable all to prosper could be brought back, Mr. Polson went on to deal with the importance of land settlement. “It is the ambition of many city dwellers, as it is of farmers, to find suitable land for their sons, but the Government has utterly neglected the question of land settlement, and during the evening I hope to show that it has not only failed to increase production, but has actually plunged the country into a mass of debt,” said Mr. Polson. He asked his audience to compare the position in the time of the Seddon administration, when there was no unemployment, when land was settled on a progressive policy, when business was sound, farmers prosperous and the cost of living was low, with the position to-day. To-day the national debt was piling up, production was at a standstill and taxation was a record. He suggested it was absurd to say the present position of the Dominion was due to war circumstances. Since the war Canada had been reducing its debt, settling more and more people on its land and reducing taxation. In Australia, Mr. Bruce had recently announced that the national debt had been, reduced by £40,090,000 and taxation per head had fallen by £6 since the year 1921-22. If other Dominions could do this why could not New Zealand? HIGH COST OF DIVING. Perhaps worse than the increased taxation in New Zealand had been the increase in the cost of living, and for that the Government must take full responsibility. In this connection he wished to discuss the attitude of the Government as disclosed in the Reform publication known as the “News Letter.” Writing in this paper, the Hon. 0. J. Hawken, Minister of Agriculture, said he knew the cost of bread had. been increased by the imposition of a duty of £5 10s per ton on flour. At the present time, said Mr. Polson, the cost of highest quality flour in Melbourne was £lO 5s per ton, freight to New Plymouth could be reckoned at £1 10s, primage costs at 2s, exchange at Is Gd and insurance at fid, making a total landed cost in Taranaki of £ll 19s 3d. South Island flour on the other hand, cost £IG ss, less 21 per cent., equal to 8s 2d, or £l5 16s lOd per ton. Freight to New Plymouth cost £l, and, allowing another 2J per cent, to a merchant, the purchasing price would be £l6 8s 6d per ton. The Government, however, placed a duty on Australian flour which brought the price in New Zealand up to £l7 9s 3d. This meant that electors had to pay 5s more for every 190 lbs of flour than would otherwise have been the case. A ton of New Zealand flour made 700 loaves, against 720 loaves from a ton of Australian flour, but even if each was accepted at 700, the tax meant practically 2d on every 11b loaf consumed in New Zealand. Why was this ? Mr. Hawken in the “News Letter” disclosed the reason. He wrote: “I find in the North Island many who strongly object to the Customs duties. I have found also that amongst the farmers ’ there is a rift in a great many cases —they object to the flour duties we have imposed to help the South Island people. As I have explained to people in Taranaki, if we abolish the wheat duties what would happen to southern farmers? We might only get one half our members returned from the South Island. I do not think we would get any more.” “Thus,” said Mr. Polson, “the whole

secret is given away. The object of the* duty is to get Reform members back into Parliament. It is a cynical and frank admission of a Minister of the Crown.”

Quoting further from Mr. Hawken’.? writing, Mr. Polson read: “Then again country members often criticise us because of the duties we impose to help secondary industries. But we have to consider our town members. We cannot get on as a party without the town members. We know perfectly well that if we abolish the duties our town supporters would have great difficulties in retaining their seats. We must go on helping the town industries wherever we can.” Commenting upon this statement, Mr. Polson said it was obvious that Mr. Hawken and his party had no policy but that of catching votes.

In the same publication Air. Hawken wrote: “There is only one danger. I am not a bit afraid of the combination against me, but I am afraid of the split in our ranks. We must stand together, there must be give and take, and I feel sure "that, with better times ahead, the common-sense of the people must make them see the necessity for unity—town and country, north and south. The whole Reform Parry must stand together tbecause we have an enemy which

we must keep out at any cost.” Touching upon these sentiments, Air Polson said that 2d a loaf was a mere

bagatelle in the “give and take" policy of Mr. Hawken and his party. “We give and the Government takes"—that was the policy of Reform. Did it reduce the cost of living, remove unemploymeat, or provide settlement? Did the workers of the Dominion realise that £5 10s per ton was placed on flour in order to keep the Reform Party in Parliament? Did they understand that they were paying this frightful toll to enable a Government without principle and without policy to retain its position on the Treasury benches? No other Government the speaker, knew of made a practice of taxing bread. The suggestion that the South Island farmers

benefited because of the tax was not correct either, because Distributors’, Ltd., were the only buyers of flour. They had a monopoly. Let farmers take note, said Mr. Polson, of this final sentence quoted from Mr. Hawken’s most remarkable speech: “One of the main things we have to keep in mind is to keep our vote solid, and this can be done by give and take methods between the different sections of the party. On many occasions I have had to reprimand the claims of the country people. They seem to think they are all important.” What, asked the speaker, was important to Mr. Hawken? It was to keep the Reform vote solid. Had a Minister in New Zealand ever descended so low before!

Even responsible Reform newspapers were utterly dissatisfied with the Government. . The Christchurch Press in its financial columns recently said: “When we add tip what we pay in rates and taxes, directly or indirectly, we find that in New Zealand we are taxed to the extent of £61,000 per day. What do we get for it except more taxes? We were better off 25 years ago when wc were taxed to the extent of only £10,561 per day. To multiply our taxation by almost six in 25 years is not funny, it is exasperating. _ With 9000 men walking off their farms in. the past three years, with 5,000,000 acres of pastoral land gone back into fern and second growth, with 20 per cent, of our breadwinners holding down jobs in the public services, with borrowing rockctting far beyond the war period, with the Government regulating everything, nobody now says this is God’s own country.”

What a tragedy—s,ooo,ooo acres gone out of cultivation! Did farmers realise what that meant —wasted lives of toil embittered parents and disappointed children? Thousands of mea and women had cleared that 5,000,000 acres only to have their hopes blasted. The worst feature of the position was the lack of necessity. The position would never have arisen if the matter had been regarded from a national viewpoint. BACKBLOCKS ROADING. What had the Government done? Last year £50,000 was placed on the Estimates for roading backblock land and only a paltry £33,000 was spent. The speaker then proceeded to give instances of progress in land settlement in such countries as Australia and Brazil, comparing the activity there with the attitude of the New Zealand Government, whose responsible Alinister had said that land settlement had reached saturation point. Nothing of the kind, said the speaker, had happened. After deducting the area of land unfit for settlement, rivers, roads, etc., there was still 22,000,000 acres of occupied and entirely unimproved land in New Zealand, as well as 18,920,000 acres of totally unoccupied land. Mr. Polson said he had reduced the amount available for settlement by eliminating 14,269,000 acres of inferior land, and this left a balance of available and unused land totalling 27,142,000 acres. Why was it not being settled t. His personal knowledge went to show that not the whole of this land was altogether suitable, but he was satisfied that the greater • portion was. In this connection he reminded his audience of the Reform Party’s catch cry —Settlement, more settlement, and still more settlement. He also recalled Air. Coates’ last election manifesto —“Closer settlement of occupied and unoccupied land by purchase and subdivision.” How did these statements agree with the statement that settlement had reached saturation point mads last March by Mr. Hawken when he said: “I find little or no genuine demand for land to-day,” or that of Mr. McLeod when he said, “I say from this side of the House that under present economic conditions the chances of settlement on land available or on laud that is likely can be purchased, is very small.” Mr. Polson contended that the Reform Party had thrown up the sponge and confessed it was unable to proceed with land settlement. What a confession in a country like New Zealand! While it was spending only £50,090 in providing backblock access, it was spending £1,000,000 on the Rotorua-Taupo railway over forsaken country, and was continuing the Gisborne line which, as their own inflated estimate showed, would mean the loss of at least 1J per cent, on the money spent. Obviously the failure of land settlement was not a question of money. The excuse was that this railway was a national undertaking. Apparently, land settlement was not, but the speaker was utterly unable to fathom why the GisborneNapier line should be a national matter. With the line half completed the Reform Party’s next step was to build a national highway to compete with it, and, to finish the job, ha/1 allowed the Gisborne Harbour Board to spend over £1,900,000 upon the harbour, the result being that whereas there used to be 16 feet of water, now there was only 3ft. Gin. LOSSES OF THE RAILWAY'S. Dealing with the railways, Mr. Polson said their plight seemed “similar,” and lie quoted figures for the last three years. In 1926, £359,000 was taken from the Consolidated Fund to make up the railway losses. In 1927, £445,000 was taken, and still a loss of £99,659 was experienced. In 1928, £489,568 was taken from the fund, and the loss after that was £291,452. Thus the actual loss in three years was over £1,600,000. The speaker was satisfied the railways could be made to pay if commonsense was applied, but the department was still in the same old groove of 35 years ago. Goods were carried on various schedules—A, B, C, D, E, and F. On a 50-mile basis freight worked out as follows: A, hardware, 445; B, boots, 37s 7d; C, sheet iron, D, galvanised wire, 24s 3d; E, flour, 9s sd; F, flax, 5s 3d. To-day, said Air. Polson, the railways carry the flour and flax and motor lorries the hardware and boots. Why, he asked, should there be such a difference between flour and boots, both necessities? Lorry owners were not to blame. They were hard working men and their vehicles were heavily taxed, yet, because of their operations, benzine, for instance, was brought to Stratford for 6d a case where formerly it had cost 2s fid by rail.

The cost of running the railways made an illuminating study. In 1928 the expenditure was £8,815,000, an increase of £281,000 over 1927. The revenue was £8,524,000, an increase of only £90,000 over 1927. In other words, it cost £280,000 to get £90,000 worth of extra business. “And here I must remind you that the' Government responsible for this state of affairs claimed to believe in more business in Government and loss Government in business,” said Mr. Polson. Passenger traffic revenue had decreased from 13,836,000 people iu 1924 to 10,305,000 in 1928, while the tonnage had only increased from 6,519,000 tons to 6,833,000. Tn spite of this grave position, costs had risen from £1772 per mile to £1983, an increase of £2ll per mile. Furthermore, the

capital had increased by £10,000,000 and the net earnings had fallen from £519 per mile to £327. “RAN UP WHITE FLAG.” First the Government set up a commission to investigate the railways, then it dismissed Mr. McVilly with a pension of £2OOO a year and set up a railway board. Inside of three years the board was dismissed, each member receiving £lOOO a year in pension. Now Air. Stirling had been appointed at £3500 a year and a pension of £2OOO a year in seven years. In the very first month of his appointment Air. Stirling had run up the white flag and had announced that the railways were -not run for profit but for service. Mr. Polson then dealt with unprofitable lines, quoting the Greytown line, in Air. McLeod’s electorate, a.s returning only £lB9 per mile against working expenses of £1297 per mile, the Foulwind line, which had lost £709 per mile for years, the Glcnham line, which lost £728 per mile, the Orawia line, which lost £783 per mils, and the Waiuku line, which lost £937 per mile. Even the Reform members, said the candidate, were growing restless under the administration of Mr. Coates. , Air. 11. G. Dickie, M.P. for Patea, had said that certain large railway works should never have been started. A member asked which lines, and Air. Dickie replied: The Napier-Gisborne line for one. What was the result of this mismanagement! said the speaker, Farming was at a standstill, unemployment was almost permanent in the towns; there were 13,500 less employees on farms than when Air. Coates took office, in spite of the fact that he claimed to have settled 6000 emigrants. There were 511 less farms in occupation, and less land was being cultivated. In 1918 there were 475,870 acres under cultivation, and in 1927 only 393,041 acres. Air. Polson proceeded to quote Mr. Winston Churchill, showing Canada’s taxation per head as £6 19s 4d, Australia’s £9 Is 6d, South Africa’s £ll 17s 2d, and New Zealand’s £l4 0s 9d. Taxation in New Zealand was double what it was in Canada and 50 per cent, greater than in Australia. It was evident, therefore, that New Zealand was spending money too fast and not spending it on sensible business lines. New Zealand expenditure during the past seven years on interest paid overseas, plus the cost of imports into the Dominion, had exceeded the total value of the exports by more than £25,000,000. New Zealand was like a business where the working expenses (imports) and the interest on mortgages (interest paid on overseas loans), must be exceeded by the takings of the business, (exports) if the business was to be sound. As a matter of fact recent Year Books would show more than double the debit balance he bad referred to. NEW ZEALAND'S CREDIT. I In his speech at Cambridge the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, Minister of Finance, had described Air. Polson’s statements as nonsense, because the credit of New Zealand never stood higher and the confidence of the investor was shown by the fact that New Zealand had broken away from the 5 per cent, rate and had borrowed at 41 per cent. Unfortunately for Air. Stewart, in page 6 of the Budget he disclosed the fact that the last New Zealand loan had cost the country £5 3s 5d per £lOO, and the London Times, in commenting upon the loan, pointed out that the yield on redemption would be 5 per cent. To-day, Air. Stewart claimed that loans came in as imports and demanded a credit as imports of capital without a debit for borrowing. On page 7 of the Budget the Minister admitted that lenders are beginning to take fright and as a result New Zealand had been forced to put up 50 per cent, of the debt redemption fund for redemption of loans maturing in London. The system of a redemption fund was begun by Sir Joseph Ward and had resulted in the accumulation of a large sum which we had been lending quite legitimately to ourselves. Now London investors insisted that 50 per cent, of the fund should be invested in London and ear-marked for their loans. Air. Stewart also took credit for having tapered borrowing down from £7,000,00 to £5,000,000, but it was an open secret that he would have borrowed the full £7,000,000 if London had not put its foot down. The result of the Reform administration since the war had been that the total debt, including local body borrowing, now amounted to £310,000,000 and renewals in the next three years would amount to £78,798,000. Owing to the foresight of past statesmen early loans had been borrowed for long terms and some of them would not mature for a decade or more. Thus the average rate of interest was only £4 7s 9d, in spite of dear money borrowed of recent years. Renewals, however, would cost at least 5 per cent., and, with fresh borrowing which the Government declared necessary, would mean at least another £1,000,000 a year on the country’s interest bill. RURAL FINANCE. In connection with the matter of rural finance, the candidate traversed the events leading up to the dispatch of the Royal Commission, of which he was a member, to travel through 26 countries to collect evidence. “Unfortunately,” he said, “the cards were stacked against me on the commission.” However, as the result of 12 months’ investigation he and his two colleagues brought back a unanimous report and. further than that, brought back the proposed legislation to make their proposals law. Air. Coates took this legislation and tore it to pieces so that the legislation as finally brought before the House was hardly recognisable by the members of the commission. However, the Bill, dealing with the longterm credits was passed, but no members of the commission were called to give evidence on the matter. Next year, when the short-time credit legislation was before the House, such a noise was made at the way the longdated Bill .had been dealt with that he and Colonel Essen (the secretary to the Treasury and a member of the commission) were called to give evidence. Colonel Essen was an old hand at such matters and took the precaution of having his evidence typed out. This he simply handed to the investigating committee. The speaker, however, gave, his evidence verbally, but a great pari of it was omitted from the final report when sent to him for signing. He refused to sign as the report did not represent the true views given by him in evidence. Nevertheless, the unsigned report was laid on the table of the House, despite his protest, and members had actually informed him that they had voted for the third reading of the Bill because he had apparently raised no objection. Air. Downie Stewart from his place in the House spoke for the Bill and said he had that day received a telegram from the president of the Springfield. Farm. Loan Bank in America approving of the legislation as at that

time before the House. Now it so happened that the president of that bank was a personal friend of the speaker’s. He had stayed a week with him and as a guest while in America and his host had gone to no end of pains to see that his views on the question of rural credits were thoroughly understood. In fact, he had written out his views, and the speaker was still able to produce that document. How then could Air. Stewart be correct? He had simply traded upon the lack of knowledge of members in saying what he had about a telegram from America. QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE. Air. H. A. Hunt asked what was the candidate’s remedy for adjusting Customs tariffs. Air. Polson: A tariff board. Air. 11. C. Johnson asked if the candidate was in favour of an- income tax on sheep farmers having a taxable income of £lOOO or over. Air. Polson: Most certainly. At the same time the candidate explained he was not in favour of dual taxation and considered a tax should be paid either as a land tax or as an income tax, whichever was most equitable. Air. T. T. Murray asked the candidate his position in relation to the United Party. Mr. Polson: I am standing as an Independent, but I realise that I cannot stand alone, and that a certain amount of team work is necessary. I was invited, purely as a visitor, to the United Party conference, and was greatly struck by the calibre of the men associated with it, and the rational views expressed. I am satisfied that in many matters I can work with the United Party, though not of it. A questioner asked whether he was in favour of retaining the compulsory clauses of the Dairy Control Act, and Mr. Polson said: I have always been opposed to the price-fixing clauses and have taken some pains to impress the opinions gathered abroad in this connection upon the Government, but they would have none of it. In view of the past history of the board I believe the elimination of the compulsory clauses to be necessary. Mr. Coogan asked if he was iu favour of the 1928 committee. The candidate did not have much time for the committee, and did not think it cut much ice. Air. Coogan also asked if he favoured a State bank, and he said: “No; we already have too much State in our institutions. Air. Wickham asked if Mr. Polson was in favour of (a) the two-issue ballot paper, (b) of having three years between polls, (c) of a bare majority. The candidate favoured a single issue, viz., “Are you in favour of prohibition ?” This system was adopted in America and Australia. He wanted a straight-out issue and a simple majority, and if that was adopted it was ridiculous to talk of three-year polls. Security of tenure was necessary. To other questions he said he desired the present system of education to' continue uninterefered with, and that he was not pledged to any party on the licensing question. On the motion of Air. R. Masters, the candidate was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for his address. In moving the motion, Air. Alasters said it was absurd to ask for a vote of confidence or otherwise at a meeting of that nature. The motion was seconded by Air. H. A. Hunt.