QUESTIONS FOR MR. HOLLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2433, 25 May 1922, Page 2

QUESTIONS FOR MR. HOLLAND.

The Welfare League submits the following questions, which it suggests should be answered in the public interest by Mr Holland: — 1. Is your party definitely socialistic in character? 2. If so, why do you not name it the New Zealand Socialist Party. 3. Presuming"!! is socialistic, will you state in what essential principles its socialism differs, if at all, from that of the Russian Communist political party? 4. Does your party support the policy of nationalising the land and industries of the Dominion?

5. In changing the economic system from private to national or social ownership to the means of production, distribution, and exchange, would your party dispossess the present owners (a) by State purchase of existing private interests; (b) by confiscating methods of taxation; or fc) (>. v forcible ejectment of present holders 6. Will you submit the plank in your party's programme which makes provision for any naval or military defence of the Dominion? 7. Tf there is no such plank, is it to be inferred that your party does not uphold taking measures'fo defend the country hy naval or mili-tary-means? 8. llow do you claim that your party is building on the foundations laid hy Ballanee and Seddon, seeing that these statesmen were Imperialists and upholders of private enterprise. while your party is opposed to Imperialism and against private ownership and control of industries

9. In advocating, as your party does, that a present valuation of all lands shall he taken, and that land shall hereafter he sold only to the Government, are you not affirming the principle of State confiscation, -ecing that the purchaser would fix the price and the seller would he ■ ■unfilled to one buyer? It). T> it not a fact that in your published pamphlet on the coal question you say on page 10: “In 1919 there was a go-slow strike in New Zealand. Nobody denies it. The miners had no option,” and does not that make your party responsible for the evil results from coal shortage which have ensued? 11. Does your party uphold the principle of “control of all industries bv the workers who operate them,” or, in other words, management of the industries by the working operatives? 12. Does your party endorse the policy adopted at the Australian Labour Congress, where you represented your party, of the nationalising of hanking and all the principal industries, and the placing of these industries under control of a Supreme Economical Council? If this is so, wherein does the policy differ from that of the Russian Bolshevik Government ?