OPPOSITION LEADER

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1931, Page 2

OPPOSITION LEADER

NEW YEAR MESSAGE.

STERN HARDSHIP FORECAST. (By Telegraph —Per Press Association) WESTPORT, December 29. The following is a New Year’s message to the citizens of the Dominion, from the .Leader of the Opposition, Mr H. E. Holland:— ! ‘May the New Year bring a full measure of prosperity and j°y 'I lor all the citizens of New Zealand, and to the people of other lands, as well. “The primary essentials to life and happiness are food, clothing, shelter, and common ' enjoyments. When the right to- these is denied to any section of the people, the whole nation suffers, and conditions arise such as are now being " experienced, conditions which should find no place in the historical records of Twentieth Century civilisation.

“When the dawn of 1932 breaks for New Zealand, it will find many thousands of people enduring unprecedented hardship in the midst of teeming plenty, and this is an immediate problem that must be faced, not only by the public representatives, but by? every responsible citizen. Until it is solved, our New Year greetings and good wishes will be likely to ring like sounding brass in a multitude of ears.

“We must set ourselves the task ot overcoming the consequences of the present depression by the reabsorption in industry of those who are now in the ranks of the unemployed, and the spfietliest restoration of the people’s purchasing power. We must right our laws, organise our industrial energies, and order our economic relationships so that productive, and consequently remunerative, work shall not be denied to those who are physically and mentally capable of performing it.

“In few countries, the least of all in this richly-productive land, is there any sane reason why men, women and little children should be compelled to endure a lack of food or any of the other necessaries of life. The fact that such a condition does prevail is a collective confusion of failure in the past. The past, however, is beyond recall; but the New Year brings new opportunities to build well for the present and the future. To that work we must bring both courage and capacity to make fundamental changes that are necessary.

“May the New Year bring prosperity and happiness. May it also bring ‘God’s great gift of peace.’ I sincerely hope that unqualified success will crown the deliberations of the delegates to the Disarmament Conference which will meet at Geneva in February, ending the international criminality of warfare, and furnishing permanent guarantee of peace ana tranquility to the peoples of the world. H. E. HOLLAND, Leader of the. Opposition.”