LABOUR’S NEW MOVE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 2 May 1927, Page 8

LABOUR’S NEW MOVE.

In view of the Labour Party’s defence of the policy of the Dairy Control Board and the attack Mr Holland is concentrating upon the Reform Government, in, the

interests:, it is claimed, of the primary producers, the question is being asked in well-informed circles, if Mr Holland and Mr Gr ounds (chairman of the Board 1 have concluded a. political alliance to launch an organised attack on the Government. It was stated, apparently with some authority, a week or two ago, the Wellington correspondents are saying, that members of the Parliamentary Labour Party were preparing to “stump” the dairy districts of the Dominion in support of the “absolute control” and “price-fixing” policy of the chairman pH the Dairy Board. It was' also stated that those members of the Labour Party who previously had voted in the House against absolute control bad given in their adhesion to Mr Grounds’s policy, and that in future they would go “the whole hog” with the majority of their party in presenting a. united front to any attempt that might he made to strip the Dairy Board of part of its authority. Additional colour is now given to these statements by reports from the Waikato district that somethingin the way of a political alliance has been established between Mr Grounds and his allies and Mr H. E. Holland and his> followers. Mr Holland, of course, would he quite consistent and logical in joining such an arrangement—his acceptance of a saner land policy does not debar him from turning the compulsionrsts to bis own account —hut just how Mr Grounds would justify such .a renunciation of his former political professions it is difficult to see. It is significant, however, .bat Labour, presumably having in view the organised attempt that was to he made in the dairying districts: in the hope of capturing- the political support pf disgruntled dairymen, has revised its land policy, which even some of lire strongest opponents of Mr Holland and his friends now admit is another indication of the Party’s approach to political sanity. In the rural electorates, during last election campaign, Mr Holland and the spokesmen of the Party, forrnd it impossible to make airy headway with the notorious “use-hold” land policy. The experiences of the Labour propagandists were not lost on the leader's aud vhe party, and the twelve planks of Labour’s saner land policy have not only broken one of tire biggest sticks Labour’s opponents so effectively used at the last general election. But this evident approach, to political sanity has been design--1 edly decided upon in the hope that any revolt against the Government which may follow the butter bungle and the breakdown of control might be farmed into flame by the Labour Party, which might use its new and more acceptable land policy as bait with which to catch the dairymen who are seeking some scapegoat to carry the sins of the so-called friends of the dairying industry who by their bung--ling policy in London inflicted such heavy financial losses on all primary producers connected with one of the Dominion’s biggest and most potential"industries.