Dominion politics.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18256, 18 February 1931, Page 2

Dominion politics.

THE REFORM PARTY.

REPLY TO LABOUR LEADER.

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY. (Bv Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The following statement has been made by Mr A. E. Mander, Dominion general secretary of the Reform Party, in reply to the recent pronouncement by the Leader of the Labour Party, Mr H. E. Holland, M.P.: — “Mr Holland’s statement calls lor outspoken comment. Referring to the Prime Minister’s recent declaration of his Government’s change of policy, Mr Holland says that ‘ there has never been in the history of any country such a wholesale dishonouring of election pledges,’ but surely Mr Holland should be the last man in New Zealand to reproach the Government on that account, in view of what has occurred in the political life of New Zealand during the past two years.

Broken Pledges. “We may recall the actual pledges made by the United Party in its election manifesto of 1928, a pledge to borrow £70,000,000 at k\ per cent., and re-lend £80,000,000 in the form of advances to workers and settlers at 4| per cent. Did Mr Holland and the Labour Party say anything about ‘wholesale dishonouring of election pledges’ when that pledge was broken ? No, Mr Holland and the Labour Party continued to applaud and to support the United Government “Then we remember that the United Part.v pledged itself to ‘a revision of the income tax scale reducing the maximum amount,’ and again the Labour Party made no protest. There was another election pledge by the United Party to ‘foster secondary industries bv subsidy rather than by protective "tariff,’ and opce again Mr Holland and his friends supported the United Government in raising tarilts, and thus increasing the cost of living with not even a hint that they disapproved of the Government's breaking its election pledge. Finally, although the United Party’s official election manifesto declared specifically that ‘the territorial system will be maintained,’ it was Mr Holland himself who actuallv boasted of having forced the Government ‘under pressure from the Labour . Party,’ to act in a manner exactly contrary to Uial in which it 'was pledged to act.