P. & T. CUT

Hokitika Guardian, 29 November 1929, Page 7

P. & T. CUT

THE LABOUR LEADER

MR COATES CHARGED WITH EVASION.

WESTPORT, Nov. 26

Air Holland, Loader of the Labour Party, lias handed to the Press the following rejoinder to Hr Coates:—

‘‘ln liis reference to the salary reductions made by the Reform Government in 1922, Mr Coates wholly evades the point made by' me that at the time the cuts were made the Budget for the previous year showed a cash balance of more than. £6,030,COQ, while accumulated surpluses amounted to well over £23,000,000. He also evades my statement, that while the Public Service cuts (according to tile then Minister of Finance) were estimated to save £BGO,000 to the State, tax reductions to wealthy landowners and others were estimated to lose to the Stato more than £900,000 under the 1922 legislation, with nearly a quarter of a million additional under the legislation of 1923, clearly establishing that the remissions to a comparatively small number .of wealthy taxpayer:were made at the expense of the public servants. “Mr Coates recalls the Reform Government’s promise to the public servants that ‘their position would be reviewed at the earliest possible moment when the finances of the country permitted.’ I have shown that ii 1922 the finances of the country were in such a healthy condition that salary cuts were wholly unnecessary, and, therefore, unjustified, but stir they were made, Furthermore, ii. later years, when nearly every member of Mr Coates’s Cabinet was proclaiming that the Dominion had turned the corner and that the Reform Party’s administration had brought an era of prosperity, Mi Coates was persistently, even incon silently, resisting every ('endeavour t<. have salary improvements made. “As late as the closing hours of the 1928 session he was leading his Party into the lobby to vote down a motion for the restoration of tin conditions of the 1920 agreement made with the public servants by his own Government, and on the hustings in the same year he was declaring that.no public service officer was thei suffering from the effects of the Pub lie Expenditure Adjustment Act. Ii may also be as well to recall tha when the Post and Telegraph rep re sentatives in 1928 pointed to the ijac that the income of the Deparmem exceeded the expenditure by ovei £1,000,000, and reminded the Government of Sir James Parr’s promise made in 1925, that success on a commercial basis would make the tinn opportune for urging salary improvements, they were told that, notwithstanding what the profits of the Department might be in futur,e tin Government had decided that tbf existing maxima provided adequate remuneration for rank and file duties'. That showed thdt Mr Coatuwas determined to hold the publicservants down to the existing maxima.

“Hansard teems with division lists which emphasise this fact, and consequently Mi- Coates need not now be surprised that both the genera public and the public servants arc disinclined to take his death-bed repentance pronouncements of to-da\ as having any material foundation oi sincerity. It is conducive to merrj ment to find Mr Coates pleading as an excuse for his vote against the Labour motion and in support of the United Government that the motion was worded so as not to embarras' the Government. That ludicrous excuse has not any greater degree oi sincerity than the right lion, gentleman’s reasons for his unbroken re record of administrative and legislative opposition to salary improvements, but if he felt that, unilike Messrs AMright, Samuel, and Macmillan, he could not support the motion, why did not he himself move a motion to express what he now sayr he and his Party stand for?

“As Leader of the Opposition lie must have been called before myself, or any other private member. The reason why Mr‘Coates didn’t so move is, of course, that any motion moved by him in condemnation of the United Government’s failure to keep faith with the public servants could only have constituted a repudiation of his own policy. His vote to save tho United Government was, after all, only a vote of justification of his own line of conduct.

“Finally, Mr Coates’s gesture regarding the £IOO bonus will not be likely to help him much, especially in view of the decision arrived at by his own Party caucus. The stinging breach-of-faith charge made against him on the floor of the House in this connexion by Mr Harris (Reform, Wait.omata) is sufficient comment at this stage.’’