OBTAINING A POLICY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2298, 4 November 1914, Page 4

OBTAINING A POLICY

One of the most amusing things that fell from .Sir Joseph Ward _in propounding what he calls a policy was his statement that he had waited in vain for the Prime Minister to disclose his policy, and .that perhaps Me, Massey was waiting, for a lead from him.". The joke behind this little piece of bombast is to be found in the fact _that nearly all the principal items in the policy_ _to which the Leader of the Opposition has set his name are drawn from the announced policy of the Massey Government, and some of them haye actually been copied from the Statute Book after being placed there by the Government to which _ Sir Joseph Ward considers he is giving a lead. Among the proposals in which the member for Awarua has been forestalled by the Reformers are those relating to closer settlement and adequate access, workers' homes, agricultural banks and colleges, invalidity' pensions, securing industrial unions , against the tyranny of their executives, Customs taxation reform, construction of railway rolling stock within the Dominion, and ensuring that qualified electors shall be enabled to exercise their votes.

Land settlement figures in the Opposition policy under several headings. It is proposed that the graduated land tax shall be increased on estates of £20,000 and upwards, and that in addition a special tax shall be imposed in certain cases. Promises are also made about closer settlement and adequate access. Mr. Massey intimated in the House a few weeks ago that he was quite prepared to increase the graduated land tax if it were found necessary to stimulate the progress of settlement and that his • standards in this respect are exacting is sufficiently indicated in the subdivision returns for the last two years which have been published several, times lately. As to adequate access the Government has already made legislative provision for setting aside all sums derived by the State from settlers in certain districts where the roading is backward, for the purpose of providing access.. In addition it has taken authority to obtain a special loan of £1,000,000 to be raised and spent over a period of three years in constructing .back-blocks roads and bridges.. In this > connection it should be noted that Sir Joseph Ward proposes to provide only £700,000 a-year *■ for. public w&rks other 'than railways. This, instead of making provision for giving back-blocks, settlers "adequate access" seems to involve a_ reduction of, the inadequate provisions made in past years, under the administration of Sir Joseph Ward, and his predecessors, which has resulted in settlement getting years ahead of roading and settlers and their families being forced to undergo terrible hardships. As to the immediate promotion of settlement the Opposition professions are badly discounted by the fact that the •Reform Government has increased many-fold the rate at which settlement was'.promoted under the Land for Settlements Act in the time of the Ward AdisifnJitrfttio'n., The only now jfe&. ture whioh Sib Jobefh .Ward has

embodied in his policy relating to land settlement is the iniquitous proposal that certain estates should be singled out, on the recommendation of the Land Purchase Board, for the imposition of special penal taxation. The Prime' Minister has stated that the next development of his land policy will involve discrimination, by taxation or otherwise, between land which is occupied and worked to the fullest possible extent and land not so occupied— between land which, is capable; of subdivision and land which is not. That is to say, he proposes classification 'of lands and equal treatment under the law of owners of estates in each class. Tho Wardist proposal apparently is that certain estates (as distinct from a class of estates throughout the Dominion) shall be singled out for heavy additional taxation. It is to be admitted that in this instance the Leader of the Opposition has introduced/a' variation upon the Hassey Government's policy, but the alteration is the reverse of an improvement, involving unpleasant possibilities of victimisation and unfair discrimination between owners of.property of the same class and value.

~ Extension of the workers' homes system is essentially a plank which the present Government has niado its own: Legislation this session increased the working scope of the system and the sum provided ■in the current Estimates for workers' homes—approximately £100,000—is the largest on record. The establishment of agricultural colleges is another well-known plank of the present Government's policy upon which Sir Joseph Ward has set despoiling hands. The same remark applies to agricultural which are referred to as follows in the Budget of 1914:— "Amongst the important questions to bo referred to the Board (of Agriculture) for its careful consideration is that of the establishment of a;system of agricultural banks, with of still further assisting struggling settlors." -. r Even Sir Joseph assurance must have faltered a little when he intimated that it was* part of his policy to prevent the executive of an industrial union over-riding the will of the union itself. Practically every schoolboy knows that the Massey Government had the courage and enterprise during a.period of unexampled industrial conflict to set its face against the tyranny/ of union- executives by the statutory enforcement of the secret ballot and other democratic safeguards, in the Labour Disputes Investigation-Act. Possibly something further ■ remains to be done in this .direction, but the task will certainly be better- entrusted to the Government which faced and solved, the problem than to tho party which suffered it to develop to dangerous, proportions. The Wardist regarding provision for the improvement of working railways are in the main the' Government proposals slightly spoiled, j Tho Government has taken authority to. spend £3,200,000 over a term of five years. Sir Joseph Ward proposes to spend, £500,000 a year for these purposes and says that if he had his way duplications', tunnels, yards, etc., would be first reconstructed, thp railway stations being taken in hand afterwards. How he would adjust tho present stations to the new and improved yards he does not explain. The construction of rolling stock and engines within the Dominion.is another Reform plank which the Opposition Leader has appropriated. The Government finds it necessary to import some engines to satisfy immediate requirements in excess of the maximum local production, but it is making provision I to augment''the construction shops in this country so.that all future This by no means exhausts the list of planks appropriated by the Leader of the Opposition from his opponents' programme in an deavour to construct a ' policy. While Sir Joseph Ward is proposing to enable all qualified electors to vote, the Government has this session amended the Legislature Act to provide that any elector whose name appeared on the' roll at last election, but has. been accidentally omitted from the current roll, ■ shall be permitted to votq in making a declaration before the returning officer. The main items in Sir Joseph Ward's policy, , where it is not adopted from that of the Reform Party, include such retrogressive proposals as those >to abolish independent control of the Public Service, and to revert to the outworn system of naval contributions as opposed to the self-reliant plan of establishing a local squadron. -There are, of course, other, planks in the platform of the member for Awarua: his baby bonus system,'.. and his shadowy scheme to reduce the cost of living by means of the milk supply; his so-called proportional representation which on his own showing is not proportional representation at all; his State steamship enterprise when tho Main Trunk railway lines are and so on. These are all his own. ideas, and they speak for Itwas a time for a polioy of big things. Where he has departed from the policy which the Government has already placed before the _ country the Leader of the Opposition has given us practically- nothing but a few trifles—they consist almost entirely of petty little proposals which at a (time like the present are unworthy to be advanced in support I of a claim to the confidence 1 of the people of the Domihidn.