WHAT PEOPLE WANT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21154, 29 September 1938, Page 14

WHAT PEOPLE WANT

ADDRESS BY MINISTER OF LANDS By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, September 27. The Minister for Lands (the Hon. F. Lr.ngstone) addressed a large and noisy meeting at Te Awamutu to-night. He was vigorously heckled. Rival motions of confidence and no-confl-dence were drowned in an uproar. Eventually the chairman declared the motion of confidence in the Government carried. After discussing the financial records of the Labour Government and its predecessors, and declaring that the affairs of New Zealand had never been better financed than in the last three years, Mr Langstone derided the use of abstractions in attacking the Government. “All this talk about ‘isms'— Socialism, Bolshevism and so on—is just moonshine," declared Mr Langstone. “The people don't want abstractions talked to them. They want real concrete things—roads, bridges, shelter, food, wages, and everything else needed for well-being. The Government must deal with real, practical things. All this newspaper talk about ‘isms’ and abstractions is so much balderdash.” An assertion by the speaker that the metropolitan newspapers supported vested interests, which were out to exploit the people, caused loud dissent and uproar. “Kick up as much row as you like," shouted Mr Langstone above the din, “you won't disrupt the meeting. You can get up and tear one another to pieces, and it won't worry me. Don't think that your croaking and shouting will bother me in the least.” When quiet had been restored, the Minister passed on to the purchase of land for soldier settlement by the Massey Government. For 403 estates, he said, it paid £5,700,000 and had to write off £2.000,000. In one case it spent £12.466 on land for one settler, and made a loss of £9048. In another it paid £215,000 for the land and stock which proved to be worth £lOO,OOO, and the Mortgage Adjustment Commission had lately valued the property at £33,000. In reference to native land settlement, Mr Langstone said the Government was carrying on development work at a rate never before known. Pakeha land settlement was being carried out mainly by the development of abandoned or forfeited Crown lands, most of which were marginal. This provided work for unemployed, and was bringing in lands that would otherwise be waste. LIVELY MEETING MR SEMPLE HECKLED By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, September 28. Organised heckling by a party from Christchurch enlivened the meeting addressed by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, at Tai Tapu last night, and culminated in one of the most persistent hecklers leaving the hall behind a constable. A small minority in an audience of 400 or more persistently heckled the Minister during the latter part of his' two-hour address, but Mr Semple was more than equal to their attempts to embarrass him. After the interjector had followed the constable out of the hall, about 20 persons rose and left. Mr Semple castigated the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates for aggravating the distress in New Zealand during the depression and asked if the audience could find any redeeming feature in his policy. “Tell us about some of the good he did,” said an interjector. Interjector: You don’t bluff me. Mr Semple: You can’t com? to my meeting and make a scene, and get off scot-free. A section of the artdienc then shouted that the Minister ought to apologise to the Interjector, but a bigger section said the Interjector should apologise to the Minister, and uproar existed for a minute cr two. Mr E. Edridge asked the Minister what was the Labour Gov? '-nent’s Intention towards the country quota. Mr Semple: Labour is not worrying about the country quota. The original interjector rose, and shouted something which was lost in the din of shouting, booes and applause which blotted out the end of Mr Edridge’s argument with the Minister. A constable, who had been standing at the back of the hall, advanced down the aisle, and waved a warning hand at the interjector, who promptly rose. When he reached the aisle, he turned to the Minister, raised his hand in a Fascist salute, and followed the constable out of the hall. Loud applause greeted his departure. The Minister said he had so far addressed 67 meetings, in various parts of New Zealand, but never until that night, had an unfriendly word been said against him. “They can’t come to my meetings and make a scene without getting it in the neck,” he added.