THE STATE OF POLITICS

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1930, Page 7

THE STATE OF POLITICS

REVIEW BY HON. J. G. COATES

government of the country. ADDRESS GIVEN IN NEW PLYMOUTH . The Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, Leader of the Reform Party, addressed, the annual meeting of the Egmont branch of the Reform League in New Plymouth last night. Mr. T. C. Fookes presided over an attendance <of about 80. Mr. Coates arrived in Now Plymouth, from lo Kuiti last evening ~ Although °it was a of friends and supporters of the Reform Party, • said Mr. Coates, still anything the party did and said was open to anyone. The main object of the meeting was to get together and to understand the party s definite planks and principles. . Since the Reform Party had been in opposition, he said, it had drawn congratulations from thousands of people on the stand it had taken on its principles. The party on the treasury benches at the present time had got there with certain planks but had no definite principles of government. It had got there by making certain promises. The country had to remember what those promises were. They had been frequently stated in t|ie Press and each member of the party had subscribed to them. Briefly, the United Party had promised to bring back immediate prosperity. To do this it had set about ' borrowing £70,000,000. Of this sum £60,000,000 was to bo spent on advances to settlers and workers, and £10,000,000 was to be devoted to railway de•velopment. The party had promised that there would be a reduction in direct and indirect taxation. There was to be less interference with private and business enterprise, and there was to be a total abolition of unemployment. In the last 18 months or two years the party had had plenty of time to get its promises at least under way. How, asked Mr. Coates, had it carried out its promises? Had prosperity returned? Was there money in the country lying ready for the development of land and the employment of labour? Had the unemployment problem been dealt with? Unfortunately there had been enough people in the country to swallow the bait of these promises, hook, sinker, line and all. REFORM PARTY’S JOB. In the meantime the job of the Reform Party was to keep the Government up to its promises. Fortunately for the country, the people of Great Britain had placed an embargo on borrowing by New Zealand. The policy of squandering was not the policy that had built up° New Zealand. The country had to carry the war debt and non-interest bearing investments of loan moneys. Was it possible, he asked, for many of the United Party’s investments to pay even 1 per cent, And, with the railway policy of the United Paity, it was not only a question of interest, 4>ut also of the costs of operation. ■■ \ The policy of the Reform- Party in office had been consistently to reduce borrowing. In 1926 £11,060,600 had been ■borrowed, in 1927 £7,000,000, and in 1928 the borrowing had been reduced to £5,000,060, The Reform Party had curtailed borrowing because it saw the need for caution. It had foreseen that the roads were becoming strong competitors, for ordinary transport purposes, with the railways. It was claimed that development of the land would follow railway extension. What development, asked ‘ Mr. Coates, could possibly be made in the Buller Gorge, between Murchison and Inangahua? The money was being thrown away. The whole policy of railway development needed to be overhauled and reconsidered. ' It was true that the Government, as it claimed, had been able to lend a lot of money for land settlement. But the money had been lent not at per cent., but at 6 per cent. The Reform Party ■when it was in power had aimed through the long term rural credit system to find the capital for land development in New Zealand itself, lhe system had been specially designed to do away with the necessity for borrow’ing on the British market. > The United Party, said Mr. Coates, had continuously promised increased land settlement. It had bought some big estates —the big landholders were quite willing to'accept cash—and one of those estates was just outside his own electorate. The land had been bought for £8 an acre. One section had been taken up and the Government had had to lease the property back to the original owner at the rate of £4 an acre. He knew of many similar cases. The Reform Party was in favour of a proper system of land settlement. If the Government had put the £2,200,000 it was spending on railways into developing good land which was idle the Reform Party would have stood by it and helped.

“FEATURE MADE OF DEFICIT.” When Parliament had met in 1928-29 a big feature had been made of the deficit of £421,000. But it had to be remem'bered that the United Party had been in office for four and a-half months of that year. The United Party had made no attempt to economise during that time to meet the deficit. When the deficit was revealed the party made a great outcry about it. They had wiped it out, however, with money from the accumulated surpluses and started off the year with a fresh sheet. In 1929-30 there was a surplus of £150,000. Revenue had greatly increased, chiefly through the Customs. At the same time no attempt had been made tb control expenditure, and although the revenue increased by £1,800,000 the expenditure also increased by £1,650,000. The policy of increased expenditure was quite all right as long as revenue was up. But then the revenue fell. “It has- taken the United Party just 18 months,” said Mr. Coates, “to run the ship of State gently on to the sands, and it ' wants a big tide of £3,000,000 to float it off again.” Anyone could have seen that with the fall in the value of primary produce revenue must have come down. The next thing was where was the money to come from —from increased taxation, more land tax or increased Customs tax? • The position to-day was serious. Any call was going to restrict the capacity of the people to go out and create industry. Industry and increased production were necessary -to pull the country through. These alone would relieve unemployment. . Although the United Party had no bet principle of government, said Mr./j Coates, the Labour Party ion the other

hand had a very definite and clear-cut principle. The Labour Party stood definitely for the K socialisation of production, the socialisation of distribution and the socialisation of exchange. It advocated State factories, State banks, State farms and a State-controlled system of insurance. In addition, the party s programme included the curious statement: The organisation of the workers for the purpose of superseding capitalism. The Reform Party’s policy could be summed up in two increased production. The Labour Party s policy of socialisation could not . possibly increase production. The biggest factor in increasing production was private enterprise • by every class of the people. And to-day the United Party was re- . tainiiig office purely through the support of a party which held these views so contrary to the prosperity of the country. THE VOTING STRENGTH. ■ In voting power the Reform Party was the strongest in the country. Reform had 270,000 votes, the Uniteds 215,000 and Labour 205,000. In the House Reform had 20 seats, the United Party 26, Labour 20, and there were five or six independents. Reform, by far the strongest party, had to look to the future. Reform did not represent only one class of the people. It stood for all classes and each man of every station had a claim on its help. In its land policy, said Air. Coates, the Reform Party stood for the overhauling of land taxation, the system of valuation, and the graduated land tax. There was no reason why land should be taxed if it was not wanted for closer settlement. It had been said that the graduated land tax was aimed at the big individual landholders, but the United Party had forgotten that the moment a tax was put on one person’s land all the land in New Zealand was affected. The equity value of all the land was altered; it was like putting a mortgage on it. The Group Settlement Act had been introduced by the Reform Party in 1928 and the Land Act of the United Party last year was practically a repetition of the Group Settlement Act in all respects except the clause giving 90 per cent, advances on improvements. A solution of the unemployment problem, he considered, lay in settling married men near schools in country districts. With farms of two, four and five acres the men could give casual labour in the country, keep a cow or two of their own and bring up their children in conditions far and away better than in the cities. It had been the policy in land settlement schemes to have high interest repayments in the first years and lower repayments as time went on. His idea, said Mr. Coates, would be to have practically no interest charges for the first year and gradually increase them as the settler became more able to meet them. , At the end of his address Mr. Coates offered to answer questions. “If the United Party were defeated on a division,” asked a questioner, “would the Reform Party take the Government benches with an agreement for support from the Labour Party, as the United Party has done?” “No," said Mr. Coates. “That is impossible.” The meeting closed with a vote of thanks to Mr, Coates and a unanimous vote of confidence in the Reform Party and its leader.