COUNTRY QUOTA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 93, 20 April 1944, Page 5

COUNTRY QUOTA

REMOVAL WOULD BE A TRAGEDY VIEW OF~~LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION (P.A.) Auckland, April 19. A prediction made in Parliament that Labour would seek to remove the country quota before the next general election was repeated and amplified by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. S. G. Holland, in an address at Remuera. The provisions in the Local Elections Amendment Bill, said Mr. Holland, were only a stage in the attack designed to destroy the primary producers' right to his present representation in Parliament, The country quota, giving 28 per cent, loading to rural electorates, had been in operation sinc n 1881, and had given excellent results in that changes of Government had always taken place when the people willed them. It recognised the special position of primary production and the country’s dependence on it. Now, after nine years in office, the Labour Party saw the writing on the wall. It knew that it was going to be defeated some day, and that the next Government would be the National Party, and perhaps sooner than laterPressure groups, of whose existence his hearers knew well, were demanding that the basis of representation be altered. If the quota were removed and the balance of industry against population were changed so as to place the primary producers at a disadvantage, it would be one of the greatest tragedies in the political history of New Zealand. In fact, it was not too much to say that disaster lay ahead unless the electors organised and expressed their opinion in so determined fashion that the Government would see the wisdom of leaving the matter alone.