SEDDON’S MANTLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19445, 3 November 1925, Page 7

SEDDON’S MANTLE

NOT FALLEN ON HOLLAND ATTITUDE TO DEFENCE A TEST ■ GOVERNMENT AND LABOUR. (Special to “Chronicle”) AUCKLAND, Nov. 2. “Labour says the mantle of Ballance and Seddon has fallen upon them,’’ said the Prime Minister at Mangere East to-day. “Well, if Labour’s policy has been correctly interpreted it is a (wonder Ballance and Seddon do not [turn in their graves. Their policy is no more like Labour’s than it is like the man in tho moon. There is no resemblance whatever. Ballance, Seddon, Ward and Massey all placed their Empire as a first consideration. There certainly never was any suggestion on their part to repeal the Defence Act, and the War Regulations. Never once did we hear any of these gentlemen referring to the Empire in the terms in which Labour have done.”

The Prime Minister said that the Government was not against Labour; in fact, it offered Labour every opportunity. All that it asked was that Labour should give faithful service and an honest return, and at the same time it asked that employers should treat and pay their workers well.

“The Government will do all it can respecting housing,” Air Coates said. “It has passed the record long ago in making money available for housing. Wc arc going to take up the attitude that wc would not ask anyone to live where we would not live ourselves. I say again that the Labour story about a reduction of 7s 6d a week in wages is a deliberate falsehood. The Government have never said any such thing, although the Labour Party keep on distributing literature to that effect. On the other hand, the Government does propose to give assistance to the family man and to give that assistance out of the Consolidated Fund.”