PARTY LEADERS SPEAK MR HOLLAND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 7

PARTY LEADERS SPEAK

MR HOLLAND

Reply to Prime Minister’s Dargaville Speech MORE about dairy control. [Per Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, May 20. There were nearly 700 people present at the Choral Hall when Mr. H. E. Holland replied to the Right Hon. J. G. |Coates’ speech at Dargaville. The Mayor of Christchurch (Rev. J. K. Archer) who is also a vice-president of the National Labour Party, was in the chair, and introduced the speaker .is “the present Leader of the Opposition in New Zealand and the future Prime Minister. ’ ’ Mr. Holland explained that he made his reply to the Prime Minister’s speech at Christchurch instead of -t Gore because of the better telegraphic facilities. An Otago Conservative paper had commented on his not replying at Gore on the night following Mr. Coates’ speech, but it must be remembered that Mr. Coates had replied to Mr. Holland a month after the latter’s speech was made. Mr. Coates’ thorough examination into the incidence of taxation had resulted in reducing taxes for the wealthy classes. His extension of scientific agricultural education had resulted in the Government fixing the site for the Agricultural College before bringing down the Bill, with the result that there was a split in the ranks of his own party. His investigations into farmers’ lands banks had been followed by the banks raising the rate of interest on overdrafts. A Bank of New Zealand gentleman, replying at Wellington to Mr. Holland, had said that it would not affect small farmers much, and anyhow they would only have used tho extra money to buy petrol—one of the most callous remarks the speaker had ever heard. Personal Criticism. Mr. Coates said he was encouraging secondary industries. When hifndreds of men were willing and anxious to work, the best the Government can offer is 12s per day to married men and 9s to single. Mr. Coates was going to improve selective organisation in immigration. If they read Sir James Parr’s speeches they would find him painting a glowing picture of New Zealand to the immigrant and saying that every person over 21 years of age had £2OOO. If that were the case, then from that audience Labour should be able to get nearly as much money as Mr. Coates got from unknown sources at last election.

In reference to Mr. Coates’ election promises as the “man who gets things done”—“he has certainly got you done,” said Mr. Holland. “Mr. Coates is extremely unhappy in his choice of epithets,” he continued, “when he says that I have been repeating, parrot-like, certain information gained second-hand, and it is only necessary for me to remind him that I prepare my own speeches and do not find it necessary to read lengthy type-written sheets put into my hand by someone else. When he expressed the opinion that I appear to be better posted than himself in the doings of Mr. Paterson, I suggest that he has only himself to blame. If the Prime Minister had been sufficiently industrious to follow my methods of filing records from the daily, weekly, and monthly press, he might have been equally well-posted in regard to Mr. Paterson, and not quite so much at sea with re§pect to the record of his own doings. Dairy Control. Regarding dairy control, all Mr. Coates proposes doing is to change its name.” He would ask Mr. Coates for a straight-out reply to the question whether he is pro-dairy control or anticontrol. The Labour Party, said Mr Holland, supported the general principle of cooperative marketing, because they saw in it the possibility of transferring the control of marketing New Zealand primary products from the speculators in Tooley Street to the producers themselves. When the idea of control was first mooted, the proposal came from the farmers themselves and, before legislation was enacted, the Labour Party, along with others interested, insisted that the suppliers, in other words the working farmers, should have the right of declaring by ballot whether or not they favoured the proposed legislation. The ballot was taken in June of 1923, when 71 per cent, of those voting declared themselves in favour of the compulsory clause of the Bill which was then before the country, and 29 per cent, voted against the compulsory clause. Price-fixing. With respect to price-fixing, in the present case it was not a question of whether there should or should not be control, but merely of who should do the price-fixing. If the producers in New Zealand failed to do the work themselves, then undoubtedly it would be done by Tooley Street, as it had ' been done in the past. Control came into active operation in of last year, and was followed by a crisis on the market affecting New Zealand butter. Those representative members of the Farmers’ Union were right to declare that that crisis was not due to the operations of control, but to the planless system of non-control which had preceded it, and which led to the storing up of New Zealand butter in large quantities for speculation and other purposes. Labour Party’s Proposal. Mr Holland then proceeded -to condemn the methods of the Tooley Street merchants, passing on to a description of the propaganda he alleged was used against New Zealand butter. A lengthy criticism of the acts of Mr Paterson, as a member of the Board, followed, after which he said that the Labour Party’s proposal was that the Board should immediately get into touch with the cooperative distributing organisation of Britain for the purpose of more effectively marketing New Zealand butter. A second proposal which the Labour Party made was that the Dairy Producers’ Export Control Board, in conjunction with the Government of New Zealand, should approach the British Government with a view to having <xn Effective Food Produce Council set up, through which the primary products of I the Dominions could be supplied to tho

consumers of Great Britain. This could be done on a basis of three or five years’ contracts, the Council contracting for stated quantities of Dominion products. Reciprocal arrangements would take secondary products from Britain, such as machinery, motor vehicles, hardware, etc., which are not manufactured here. At the present time, we were sending large sums of money to America and Canada for goods from these countries, while they took very little indeed of bur products, and this means that the balance of trade as between New Zealand and those two countries was heavily and detrimentally against us. Labour Supports the Board. In any case, the Labour Party laid it down that, the marketing of our primary produce would have to be based on an organisation that would eliminate the speculator and the manipu lator. It was the duty of the people of New Zealand to uphold the Board, and it was equally their duty to uphold the Board against the Coates’ Government, if necessary. Mr Holland referred briefly to what he claimed was Labour’s steadily ga ning power all through New Zealand, and spoke of his good reception on tour. He would return to his constituency next week when he would deal with phases of Mr Coates’ statements. A vote of thanks and of confidence in Labour’s cause was accorded Mr Holland, who was given hearty cheers as he left the platform.