N.Z. LABOUR AND CHINESE QUESTION

Shannon News, 15 February 1927, Page 4

N.Z. LABOUR AND CHINESE QUESTION

MR. HOLLAND WOULD NOT BE PARTY TO WAR. WESTPORT, Last Night. Mr. H. E. Holland M.P., leader of the Opposition, delivered a public address at the Town Hall Saturday evening on the position in China. He stated that there were two great movements in China, on representing the strivings of the people towards Nationhood and the other movement, of workers for higher economic standards. He dealt historically with events which led up to and characterised the opium wars and terminated with the treaties of Nanking and Tientsin compelling China to open her po;ta to opium traffic. This constituting one of the blackest charges in British history and furnished solid reason why, next to Japan, Great Britain was more disliked by Chinese than any other Nation. Various movements towards Nationalism were traced by the speaker who welcomed the British Government's recent offer to China as a demonstration of willingness to negotiate but inasmuch as it offered no vea\ control of our own affairs it would hardly be regarded as more than a basis for discussion. Britain should follow Russia's example and meet China on a. footing of complete international equality and hand back all concessions and relinquish every right of extra territoriality and along with it every measure of internal interference such as the control of Customs etc. Britain had everything to lose and nothing to gain by war. The Labour Party would use whatever influence it might poscess to ensure, whatever rearrangements are made, would be by processes of reason not the arbitrament of the sword. The rights of exploitation held by British industrial capitalists and financial magnates in China are not worth- the sacrifice of one British soldier's life. If they should succeed in involving Britain in war on their behalf, he would never be a party to New Zealand taking part in it.