NEW PARTY’S POLICY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 249, 18 September 1940, Page 9

NEW PARTY’S POLICY

DEMOCRATIC LABOUR. ADDRESS BY MR J. A. LEE. There was a large attendance at the Cipera House, last evening, when an address was given by Mr J. A. Lee, •M.P., on the principles of the'Democratic Labour Party. Except for a few interjections at the opening of the meeting, the audience gave the speaker an attentive hearing, and after a number of questions hud been answered at the dose of the address a motion was carried by acclamation expressing “appreciation and thanks to Mr Lee for his address and heartily endorsing the principles ..of the Democratic Labour Party.” The chairman for the first part of the evening was Air T. Dixon, vice-chairman of the committee of the Palmerston North branch of the party, and in the latter part Mr S. J. Bennett, the chairman of the committee, presided. In opening his address Air Lee said he made no apology in coming forward to form the party. The Democratic Labour Party would have 80 candidates at the next general election. On March 29 of this year he had been pronounced “politically dead,” but within a month a branch of the party had been formed in Grey Lynn (his own electorate). The party had enjoyed the greatest advance made in New Zealand’s political history. There were now 37 branches, with 18 others in the process of formation, and there would be 100 branches before the end of the year. . Not once, proceeded Air Lee, had he voted against a plank in the policy of the Labour Party. He had signed, a pledge to abide by that party’s policy, which he outlined. He had been expelled because he protested against decisions being made against the majority decision of the Labour Party caucus. There was no man in New Zealand big enough to lead Fascism, and the speaker said ho would don khaki and fight Fascism if necessary. The Democratic Labour Party would fight the next election on the promises made by the Labour Party at the last general election. The. new party was opposed to Fascism, to Hitler and to Mussolini. It believed in the development of New Zealand and believed that the Dominion should be more than a liewer of wood and drawer of water for overseas bondholders. The new party believed that we should have a pig-iron industry at least, that the possibilities of an aluminium industry should be investigated, that (with our wood and power) possibilities in the plastics industry should be examined. Further, the wood pulp industry should be in existence. Time after time parts of the Labour Party had called for a greatly accelerated policy of development,’ but the persons in control had shelved this urge. The Democratic Labour Party wanted to build. New Zealand, not to destroy it. Pre-war conditions of society had gone, added the speaker. Alacliinery had been brought into full production for war, and if it could not be made to serve ’>eace as well as war we would have, after “the beast” was beaten, the greatest depression the world had ever known. CONTROL OF CREDIT.

The Democratic Labour Party would, and'meant to, split the Labour Party, Air Lee went on. It would split the log off the chip “and leave Air Fraser with the chip.” It would split the Tory Party, too. “I think the Labour Party’s policy is a very good policy,” proceeded the speaker, who outlined certain planks in it which, he said, had never been put into effect. The policy held that the people should be the sole authority for issuing credit. Five times it Iliad been promised that the Bank of New Zealand would be taken over by the Government, yet this had not been done. It was useless to build any social improvement when the foundation —the control of credit —was but sand. The Labour Party had not given the lowest rates of interest possible to farmers, ias it had promised; it had not provided credit for secondary industries, as promised; and had extended this (to increase the production of consumer goods) to only £50,000 in its first three years as against £30,000.000 spent on public works. The State must socialise the money mechanism, declared Air Lee. In his lifetime, since 1891, the national debt had increased by £288,000.000, and £250,000,000 had’been paid in interest. A sum of £77,000 had been borrowed to help win the Alaori War. On that had been paid £278,000 in interest and the £77.000 was not paid back yet. Our National Debt absorbed 50 percent. of our rating revenue in the payment of interest. In Auckland, as an example, 17s 8)d out of every £1 of rates went to pay interest, leaving 2s 3}d for conducting the city’s affairs. The National Debt payments amounted to £l2 per bead of the people, or £6O a year for a. family of five. It was absurd to borrow money to pay interest, but tin’s was actually wliat bad been done. From 1931 to 1939 New Zealand had borrowed £133,000,000. but in that period it bad paid £145,000,000 in interest.

The Democratic Labour Party would carry out the Labour Party’s policy, reiterated Air Lee. It would recruit worthwhile men and women, it would not l>e controlled by “bosses” and “would throb with radical idealism.”

In answering a series of questions, Air Lee said he did not attack the late Prime Alinister, but attacked the humbug of inaction, sheltering behind a sick man. If the Labour Party implemented its full policy the new party would give all the assistance it could. Air Lee said he would not give even five minutes’ freedom to the man who wished to use democratic privilege of free speech to overthrow Democracy, and he said he was not greatly concerned about any conscientious objector to war being in gaol while people were being bombed in London. If such a man said the New Zealand troops should lay down their arms—“well then, he is in the way and that is all there is about it.”

The motion previously mentioned was moved by Air T. C. Guy and seconded from the body of the hall. The National Anthem was played before and after the address.