NOT AN ALTERNATIVE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 13

NOT AN ALTERNATIVE

UNITED PARTY AND LABOUR

Tho proposition that the United Party is no alternative to the Labour Party was advanced by Mr. Harold F. Johnston, the Reform candidate, speaking at Koro Koro last night. He suggested that the by-election contest was really one between Reform and Labour. The spectacle they had last session was one in which the United Government was at the mercy of the Labour Party. It had been shoved hither and thither, whether it wanted to go or not, along the path Labour directed. That very diverting spectacle (from the amusement point of view) was no good to tho country. If it were to continue, they would have the same state of chaos that existed last session. He did not know whether the Labour Party or the United Party cared who got in at the by-election, or whether they were satisfied with the alliance they had. In any ease, the Reform Party was opposed root and branch to the policy of the Labour Party. If people supported tho Reform Party they would know where they stood; but if they supported the United Party, they would not know whether that Party was coquetting with Labour, whether it was united with Labour, or whether it was standing by tho policy of Labour. It could not bo said whore the United Government would go. Nothing was more certain than that the United Party's promises could not be kept, and that those promises were not going to bo kept. Sir. Joseph Ward had set out to borrow £60,000,000 for land settlement; but it was impossible to raise it at £5 03 Id per cent., and lend it out at the promised rate of 4J per cent. In the eleven months tho United Government had been in office no progress had been made in land settlement, and the number of settlers it had put on the land did not amount to more than about three score.