RANGITIKEI SEAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19365, 23 July 1925, Page 4

RANGITIKEI SEAT

LABOUR CANDIDATE SPEAKS. Mr. Q. J. Duggan, the official Labour candidate for the Rangitikei seal, opened his campaign at the Methodist Schoolroom, Wanganui East, last evening. Mr. W. Kcast was voted to the chair.

The candidate impressed his hearers as a fluent speaker, with a good plat form address. His remarks were confined to an elucidation of the Labour Party’s platform as regards State insurance and the institution of a State Bank. He also referred to the housing conditions in the various parts of the Dominion, particularly in the centres, and contended that unless drastic changes were brought about in this de partment of the Dominion’s social order the country would, in the not far

distant future, be faced with the slum problem surpassing that which menaced the social construction of older countries. “In a country such as ours/’ said the speaker, “it is scandalous to think that where there exists an abundance of finance that such conditions are permitted to obtain.” Touching on the question uf insurance Mr. Duggan dealt, at considerable length with the operations of private companies which, he insisted, were not. from an economic viewpoint, conducive to the best interests of the people, who should be permitted to govern and administrate their own insurance business. He ardently advocated a State insurance policy. The population of the Dominion was one million and a quarter, yet the companies operating received annually from that population something in the neighbourhood of five million pounds, so that these institutions received from every individual in the community, from twenty-one years to sixty years, a sum of £4 5s 6d. There were 51 companies with 10,000 offices and agencies operating, and, he con tended that people paid the companies as much to look after Iheir own business as it did to administrate the Post and Telegraph Department. The speaker quoted rounds of figures in support of his argument and he further advanced the opininn that the expenses incurred in running the eompanu s would bo bettor employed in furthering the interests of our primary indu.fl rir<. as would also the huge profits tlml these concerns amassed. Mr. Duggan finally dealt with the question of a State Bank, expressing | himself as in favour of such an institu- | tion. At the conclusion of his address the candidate was accorded a unanimous vote of thanks.