LABOUR OPENS ATTACK

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1928, Page 11

LABOUR OPENS ATTACK

MR. HOLLAND AT MASTERTON "GREATEST POLITICAL BATTLE.” REFORM'S POLICY CONDEMNED. B» Telegraph— Press Association. Mastertoil, Last Night. The first shot in the Labour campaign was fired at Masterton to-night by Mr. IL E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, who was greeted enthusiastically by a crowded house. In opening the meeting the Mayor, Mr. T. Jordan, said too little was heard from the political leaders and the community went mostly by what it read of their words. Mr. Holland said that what would be the greatest political battle in the history of New Zealand was about to take plaee in New Zealand. He believed that the real contest would be between the two main parties, Labour and Reform. Whoever were opposed to the existing Government must cast their votes for the official opposition. The day of the Liberal party, great as its part in past politics had been, had passed and Labour had displaced the old Radical parties. Mr. Holland said he wished to draw attention to each of the business methods in Parliament. No business man would conduct his affairs as the business of Parliament was conducted. His experience was that to keep up with events in the House he must be back at 9 a.rn. after sitting until 4 a.m. There should be fixed hours for Parliament, he asserted, because members were often asleep in their seats. With regard to the Reform Party and its failure to carry out its promises, Mr. Holland said the Reform Party had promised the farmers, among other things, the freehold of land. Had the farmers got that freehold! They had got mortgage-hold instead. The Reform Party had promised legislation against aggregation, whereas present conditions in New Zealand were a record of aggregation. In support of the contention he quoted figures to show that the land wealth was concentrated in the hands of comparatively few people in New Zealand. He asserted that land values had to bo taken into consideration, and said that the increase in the number of mortgages under Reform Government constituted a stranglehold on the farmers. HIGH INTEREST CHARGES. One of the hardest factors the farmer was up against was the high rate of interest, which worked out at about £190,000,000, of which the farmer’s share was over £10,000,000. Ever since the speaker had been Tn the House the farmers had clamoured for rural credits and agricultural banking. The Reform Government had responded with legislation which had proved of no value whatever. The Labour Party had made it clear that the small farmer would not pay income tax, but those big landowners who were not sufficiently taxed at present would be made to do so. Because of these large landowners the workers of New Zealand had to pay increased taxation, direct and indirect. Another phase of the Government’s land policy, said Mr. Holland, was that legislation which drove settlers off the land. The Government had promised the farmers security of their holdings. The Labour Party’s policy must be to keep the man on the land and overcome the huge land gambling operations that had gone on, as snonu by land transfers which, since .1912, under the Reform Government, numbered 484,000, equal to three transfers for every landholder in New Zealand. The cost of those transfers had been £25,000,000. While a number of those transfers had been unavoidable, it was not to be denied that the cost of the transfers added a further liability to the man taking over land. Going on to deal with dairy control, Mr. Holland said the Government carried a weighty responsibility in the matter of the attempt to wreck dairy control or the marketing of New Zealand’s primary products. These passed through six or seven hands before they reached the consumer. Co-operative marketing, affirmed by the dairy suppliers’ emphatic vote,, was intended to meet the difficulty, but Mr. Coates and his Government surrendered as soon as the guns of Tooley Street thundered, and the interests of the primary producers were made a matter of secondary consideration. RURAL CREDITS SCHEME. | In criticising the earlier rural credits scheme Mr. Holland said the country had paid £6OOO for a report of the commission, which could have been compiled without going out of New Zealand and which the Government did not adopt. The Government’s rural credits scheme was not going to help the farmers to any degree, as it did not make more credit available, and the scheme was practically dead.

The latest scheme of rural intermediate credits was a different organisation altogether. The sum of £9O which the farmer paid was held by the Rural Credits Board as security for the £lOOO loan he obtained.

Dealing with interest charges, Mr. Holland made a charge against the Government that its policy with regard to the Post Office Savings Bank and the State Advances Office had been practically dictated by the associated banks and financial institutions, than which there was no stronger argument for a State bank.

Concerning Mr. H. H. Sterling, the new railways manager, and his treatment in regard to superannuation, Mr. Holland stated that the Government had made legal an illegality because of its weight on the floor of the House. The action of the Government had made it open for railway servants whose time had been broken to claim equal treatment to that accorded Mr. Sterling. Mr. Holland said there had been certain loss on non-paying railway lines in this country-, and in criticising the Government’s system of reckoning he said there had been a lose of £10.000,000 more than was shown.

Unemployment, said Mr. Holland, had been caused in the past by the Government’s immigration policy. The Labour Party was not prepared to continue immigration when it meant the New Zealander was to lose his position. The unemployed should be placed m positions to which they belonged, and if that were not possible they should be paid standard rates of wages. The Government pleaded it had not the money to hand for this work, but it could vote £1,000,000 to the Singapore Base scheme, which would soon be obsolete.

There was no time, concluded the speaker, at which State enterprises were in greater jeopardy than at present. The Labour Party’s policy was the devising of a land Bill to break up the big estates, firstly by negotiation and secondly by compulsion, with right of appeal in the latter case. If the appeal went against the Government, it would buy the land at a figure fixed by a higher tribunal. Labour would grade the land tax more steeply to bring about closer settlement and would undertake the work of clearing the land before the farmer went on to it. Another part of Labour’s policy would be the setting up of a State bank, a system of unemployment insurance, invalid pensions, an amendment- of the Education Act and the reorganisation of boy conscription. These measures were to be introduced before the first three years of Labour's office.