THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1935. POLITICAL PROMISING.

Wairarapa Age, 3 October 1935, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1935. POLITICAL PROMISING.

That the present Government ,has done nothing right and that a Democrat Party Government; if there ever is one, will do nothing wrong appear to have been the leading ideas advanced by Mr. T. C. A. Hislop in his policy speech at Auckland. The proposals of the projected party, as they were outlined by its leader, reflect in an. extreme degree the assertive extravagance and fierce intolerance that are to be expected of political youth and inexperience. In his attack on the Government. Mr. Hislop made no allowance for the fact that this country-Anjd others are emerging from the worst economic depression the world has evqr known—a depression in which the export returns of the Dominion were ciit in half and its total national income reduced by something like forty psr cent. The simple plan of the Democrat leader is to blame the Government fqr everything that has happened of is happening of an adverse kind. In the. eyes of thinking men and women this sort of thing answers itself and mujt correspondingly discount all that thosje who utter it choose to advance in tlpe way of professions or promises. The Democrat Party is dangerous, not on its merits, but because unthinking people are liable to be beguiled and led astray by gaudy promises and because the party proposes to split< the moderate • vote in nearly every electorate. It is •fop the electors of the Dominion to sujrmdunt if they Can the perils thus occasioned.

fro one could' dream of denying that Mr. Hislop is gifted in the art of promising. On behalf of his party he proposes to cure unemployment by guaranteeing or borrowing up to eight millions of Capital expenditure in One year and up to twenty millions in four years. As an addition to other inevitable borrowing, this would be pretty wild plunging even if it served: the purpose of eliminating unemployment. The assumption that it would do so is, however, entirely unsupported. There is no assurance whatever that this anticipation would be realised in any important degree and experience in many countries suggests strongly that it would not. . An extension of self-supporting industry is, of course, the remedy for unemployment, but attempts to extend self-supporting industry by means of State borrowing or guarantees have in general been exceedingly disappointing, In addition to huge borrowing, the Democrat Party proposes to restore all civil service cuts, to give farmers in need of assistance more assistance than they are getting now from the high exchange, to make liberal additions to

pensions and to increase expenditure in some other directions. It proposes also to remit millions of taxation) the biggest "single item in thife category being the abolition of the ’sales tax, which is estimated to produce this year approximately £2;500,000.. To those who are content to follow the humdrum ways of arithmetic it must be plain to dcanonstration that one of the most striking achievements of the Democrat Party, if it were allowed to do what it threatens to do, would be that of arriving at the greatest financial deficit New Zealand has ever known.* GRATIFYING UNITY. Conditions of working unity were established by the Wairarapa Secondary Education Board at its meeting last evening on which its members are to be congratulated' unreservedly. Mr. Alex. Donald must be> credited with having given an effective and broadminded lead. The happy position reached is that the- minority of the board which favours amalgamation is now prepared to work unitedly with the majority section opposed’ to that policy in urging the Government to make provision for additional accommodation and for other* developments of technical education in Masterton which admittedly are overdue. The present site of the Technical School is not ideal and there should be no question of continuing to ( use buildings that ate not certified to be fit and safe for educational purposes. It may better to go ahead with improvements to the existing establishment, however, than to waste further years in endeavouring to obtain a new school on a better site. In any purposeful efforts it makes on the lines now suggested, the Secondary Education Board should be able to count upon the whole-hearted support of the town and district community in* terested in the Technical School.