MR. WEIGHT'S ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 100, 30 April 1930, Page 12

MR. WEIGHT'S ATTACK

UNEMPLOYMENT RETURNS

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day. "The United Government went into,office 'off the red* and was determined to hold office at any price," said Mr. B. A. Wright, M.P., in his by-election address. It had failed, he went on, to fulfil its promises. It had land settlement and railway policies which it was claimed would absorb all the unemployed. What had happened? There were more unemployed in New Zealand to-day than there were last winter, if we only knew the figures, but unemployed returns were not published now because the Government dared not let the people know the real position. Tho Government had certainly expedited State Advances, but in. gathering in the Dominion all available money to enable that to be done it had caused the rate of interest to advance from 5.1: per cent, to 5J per cent., and tho rate on overdrafts had also increased. That was a point for business men to remember on polling day. ' "UNMITIGATED BLUFF." It was all unmitigated bluff to say that the result of the by-election might cause a General Election, said Mr. Wright in reply to a contention advanced by the United candidate that there will be no General Election before the usual time. AH Mr. Holland wanted to do was to stimulate actity so that money would be subscribed to Labour's fighting fund to enable every electorate in New.Zealand to be contested by Labour candidates next year. There would be no crisis this year. Labour would support the Government again and squeeze tho Government for a little more. It was pathetic to see tho position into which the political life of this country had drifted. It would be better to have a Labour Government, because the Labour Party would then have to accept responsibiliity. It must be a most humiliating position for members of tho Ministry to be dictated to by the Labour SocialMIXED METAPHOR. The Ministers were bemoaning the fact that the Government was in a minority, but they knew what the position was when they accepted office. Labour had the Government's head iv chancery. Socialist doctrines were being poured ' down the Government's throat in homeopathic doses, one pill at a time, but the time" would come when the doses would be larger. "If you return. Mr. Endean," said ' Mr. Wright, "you will show that you object to a continuance of. that state of affairs. The proper thing for Labour to .do is j to join with the Government and share the portfolios. Then the country would know where it stands. The Liberals have amalgamated with Labour at Home, and that is what they . should do here."