Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1925. TO-MORROW'S ELECTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2957, 3 November 1925, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1925. TO-MORROW'S ELECTION.

TO-MORROW electors throughout the Dominion will be faced with the onerous duty of makng a decision between the candidates offering for the three contending political parties —Reform, Labour and Nationalist. Iu the Manawatu Electorate all three of the above parties will be represented by one candidate each, and as we have previously stated, the fight will contend mainly between Reform (Mr. Linklater) and Labour (Mr. Roberts). Mr. Hoilings stands as the accredited candidate of the Nationalist Party. In making their decision electors will be well advised to view the matter more from the comprehensive, viewpoint of the country’s welfare as a whole rather than from, the parochial aspect, and this will involve the question of whom they will be supporting as a Party leader by their act of casting their vote in favour of one or oilier of the local candidates.

MR. LINKLATER, the Reform candidate, is offering his services for a further term, and as a Reformer supports Ihe progressive political policy as laid down by the Party leader, Mr. Coates. It is unnecessary for ns to again review the sound and common-sense programme issued by Mr. Coates, nor to refer to the qualifications upon which Mr. Linklater again, presents himself for re- election, sufficient to say that the support of Reform will ensure the continuation of the present steady prosperity and security of this Dominion, and a Government which will treat with equal consideration the just claims of all classes of the community.

ON Friday evening last Mr. Ben Roberts placed before local electors his interpretation of the Labour Party’s programme. With the fact in view of this constituency being mainly composed of farming lands, Mr. Roberts devoted considerable time to the land policy of his Party, and which after all is the main issue for a country like this Dominion, which depends for its prosperity upon the products of the land. The Labour Party’s strong point on the land question is its “usehold” tenure, which states that use and occupancy shall he the sole title to land. This plank in itself opens uf> a most complicated and controversial position, if only when considering the position of land leased to others, land under the care of managers on behalf of owners, or land held and worked in trust, on behalf of others unable to use of occupy. Labour’s claim to have devised a means of eliminating “the enormous fictitious values” that have been placed on the land of the country by the setting up of a mortgage assessment court, is a proposal that would be highly dangerous in its operation, and would also he a system that would favour one section of the community at the expense of the other—something which Labour, if its claims are to be accepted, is directly opposed to. If it were just to release farmers from the effects of a bad bargain by means of legislative enactment, surely it would he equally just to attempt to release any business man from similar disabilities because he had undertaken responsibilities greater than his turnover justified. In the eyes of Labour the mortgagee is an unnecessary evil, and lie receives no credit as the medium through which the farmer is assisted to take up his pursuits; nor for the risk he undertakes in placing his capital at. the disposal oL' the mortgagor. \\!hile it is admitted that land prices have reached a figure in some cases exceeding the value which leaves a reasonable margin for the farmer, these prices are not the result of had government, but the consequences of people failing to observe the business caution of purchasing at productive values based on normal market prices. Politicians arc prone to expound to electors for the purpose of prejudicing opposing parties, theories that sound damning, but which when analysed prove to lie the most patent humbug conceivable. Taken as a whole the Labour Party’s platform reveals an intention to subject the Domin-

ion to a strict regime of parental oversight, and direct interference with the liberty of the subject. This is in the first place revealed by the basic object of the Party—the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. How Labour will increase the basic wage without speeding up production in our industries is another problem which is not elucidated, but is probably offered to the manual worker as a hail. Wages are not the proceeds of capital, but the proceeds of labour, and these little facts are conveniently omitted when placing before the workers the enticing array of attractions specially staged at these times. It would be foolish to contend that Labour’s policy does not contain many good points throughout its detail, but it can be said with truth that those good points are already incorporated in the Reform Party’s programme in one form or another, and it is only necessary to point this out for the reason that Labour politicians are prone to lay claim as the originators of all progressive and humanitarian proposals.