THE REFORM RALLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 226, 24 September 1929, Page 6

THE REFORM RALLY.

Permit me to endorse your sentiments in regard to the establishment of junior leagues to study political questions. At the Bame time, I should like to remove a wrong impression which must have been created by your saying in your subleader of Tuesday last "the Reformers, in starting a Junior League, have followed the lead given by the United party As a matter of fact, the Reformers had a junior league at their headquarters in Wellington before the United party was even thought of. The latter was the first to follow the idea in Auckland, certainly, and I trust that much good may come of it. Your reference to_ Mr. Coates having left unsolved many intricate questions such as finance, taxation, land settlement, railways and public works compared with the energetic way the United party has tackled them is hardly fair. With regard to finance, Mr. Coates left an accumulated surplus of oyer two millions and his administration of this Department was referred to as follows by Sir Basil Blackett, the noted world financier: "Nowhere in the world were the principles of sound finance better understood and better applied than by the Government of New Zealand." I should likes, to have heard this authority's opinion on Sir Joseph's scheme to raise £70,000,000 at 4A per cent and let it out at 4£ per cent without costing the country anything. Taxation would not have been increased under Reform administration. United is already breaking its promise in proposing to increase taxation. With falling prices of land, Reform did all possible in regard to land settlements Reform's railway policy was based on the soundest principles, and their achievements in this direction and in Public Works will always redound to their credit. THOS. McINDOE.