PRESS COMMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1928, Page 3

PRESS COMMENT

It is all very well for Mr. Holland to talk of ensuring to the freeholder and the leaseholder the absolute possession of his property • to hint that his most ardent desire is to prevent the farmer from being dispossessed; hut Mr. Holland would not be occupying his present position if he had not spent iho greater part of a lifetime declaiming against private property in land, and against private enterprise in ererj shape and form. A political party can not get rid of its own history, and the Labour Party cannot dispossess itself ot long years of agitation against private ownership. It has not repented, and has not abandoned in any respect the essential principles of Socialism. The fourteen planks of-its present platform carefully avoid any mention of, or reference to, the principles of 'Socialism, and throughout the long manifesto that the party issued last week there occurs no word to suggest that Socialism lias ever had any part in the policy of the Labour Party. It was for Mr. Holland to explain the reasons for this suppression, and ho failed to explain them —“Lyttleton Times.-'

It is not generally realised how valuable to New Zealand is the extension of insurance .business to other countries. The rising rate of fire loss in New Zealand probably has the result of reducing the actual underwriting profit in this country. It has long been a scandal to the country, and the position is getting worse. The insurance group furnishes the most efriking New Zealand example of what is Commonly known in English as “invisible exports,” which in 'England’s case more than cover the surplus of imported over exported goods. In bnfr own case this income from business and investments abroad must be large enough to .be noted by economists.—. “Star,” Auckland.