POPULATION DRIFT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 219, 16 September 1943, Page 6

POPULATION DRIFT

MR. HOLLAND AT OAMARU , ’ (P.A.) Oamaru, Sept. 14. ■; To-night Mr. S. G. Holland, leader : of the National Party, addressed the ■ largest and most enthusiastic political i meeting at Oamaru so far in this campaign. ,' Speaking of the drift to the North ■ Island, Mr. Holland said the South i Island would have to bestir itself or |it would be left behind. He had • never lost an opportunity of advocating the claims of the South Island, which was not getting a fair expenditure of public funds. He was trying to interest South Island audiences to be more alive in demanding justice for the South Island. Mr. Holland dealt fully with decentralisation, saying that we had lost industrial balance. There were too many unskilled workers and too few | skilled craftsmen and tradesmen doing t jobs to buiid homes for people. There I was a shortage of 70,000 nouses for the present population. When the servicemen returned from overseas nothing could be more useful than to train them so that they could build homes for themselves. They would be entitled to well-paid creative employment. The National Party proposed to set up an organisation to train returned men in employment of their own choice. Mr. Holland dealt with industrial relations, stating that they would never get anywhere while a gull existed between employer and worker. They should remove from the mind of the worker the idea that the employer was his enemy, and from the mind oi the employer that the worker wanted to do as little as he could for as big a reward as he could get. Ninety-live per cent, of the workers were decent 1 bonest men and women and were anxious to do a fair day's work for a fair day’s-wages. But the trouble lay with the five per cent, of imported industrial trouble-makers whose only success was in destroying the success of others. The National Party proposed to remove the causes of industrial troubles by the establishment of an industrial harmony bureau to investigate causes of troubles. They also proposed a system of co-operative schemes to increase the rewards of industry.