MR HOLLAND'S CAMPAIGN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 279, 25 November 1931, Page 8

MR HOLLAND'S CAMPAIGN

REASONS FOR IMPORTING COAL NATIONAL PARTY FORMATION BIG MEETING AT PALMERSTON [ Per Press Association. ] PALMERS! ON N., Nov. 23. Mr. H. E. Holland, Labour Leader, spoke in the Opera House, which was crowded to overflowing, with a large audience in the street listening to a loud speaker system. It was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic Labour meeting ever held in Palmerston North. Mr. Holland said Mr. Forbes was appealing to the people to purchase New Zealand goods, but his Government had been busy importing both railway sleepers and coal from overseas, while thoir own sleeper getters and coal miners were standing idle. Mr. Forbes now said that coal had been ordered from Australia by his Government as a staud-by against action by the miners That statement was a flat contradiction of the Prime Minister’s reply to himself when the imported coal was being ordered. At that time Mr. Forbes tele graphed that only a small quantity of coal was being brought from Australia, and that it was being obtained for storage in open-air depots. An opposite announcement was made by Mr. Veitch, who was then Minister of Railways, when he declared that coal was being imported because it could not be procured from the mines of the Dominion.

Mr. Forbes’ latest explanation was an emphatic contradiction of what Mr. Veitch had said.

Another mis-statement by the Prime Minister to his Dunedin audience was that he (Mr. Holland) had said that the speech made by Mr. Coates at Dargaville had been broadcast. He made no reference to Mr. Coates’ Dargaville speech. What he said was that from Wellington some time previously Mr Coates had broadcast a statement of tht» Government’s policy in relation to unemployment, and that speech so broad cast contained no ray of hope for betterment of the position of the unemployed. As to Mr. Forbes’ repetition of I:is assertion that he put the matter of forming the National Government before the Leader of the Labour Party, he now wished to invite Mr. Forbes to make available for inspection his files with the communication which he claimed to have sent and the reply he claimed to have received. As a matter of fact no communication had ever been sent to him by Mr. Forbes, and consequently no reply could have been received. A vote of confidence in the Labour Party w r as carried amidst cheers.