Liberal Organiser Castigates Reform

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 77, 22 June 1927, Page 9

Liberal Organiser Castigates Reform

MR. YEITCH AT ROTORUA ADDRESS TO FARMERS {Special to THE SUN.) E opportunity afforded by the large number of representative farmers being assembled at Rotorua for the dairy conference was not overlooked by Mr W. A. Veitch, M.P. for Wanganui, the new organiser of the Liberal Party, who has addressed meetings elsewhere, but not previously north of Marton. He paid a hurried visit to Rotorua, and this evening addressed a large gathering of farmers and residents. Mr. Veitch said that he was proud to lead such earnest, determined and fearless men, and that he had found them all over New Zealand. The Reform Government had tested for results, and failed. Where were the prospects of free, happy settlers that the Reform Party had been trying to get for 16 years? he asked. The tenantcy to the Crown had nearly he«n transferred to a tenantcy to the user by an effort to place freehold In the forefront. The great question to-day was of finance, and Liberalism was not going to live on its history in allowing it to remain on top. The difference between Liberal and Reform was that no land settlement under the Liberals had been a failure. It never placed an impossible load of finance on the settlement of the land. Liberals had proved themselves the friends of the small man, and Reform of the big man. “I am convinced that agricultural banking could be utilised to * a very considerable extent to remedy the present position,” asserted the speaker. It meant corporate security, and the co-operative borrowing of money becoming available at much lower rates. No agricultural bank had failed. Tho speaker said that the Government must not devise new means of getting people on the land, but stop them from being driven to the cities-, as they were being by the economic position to-day. Cheaper money, more railway assistance, and revaluations would all affect the farmers* position. The land slump to-day is entirely the fault air the Government in its indiscretions in land purchases. "FINANCIAL RESULTS ASTOUNDING" “The Government’s financial results have been astounding." stated the speaker. “The national debt in round figures in 1912 was £B4 millions; 14 years later it was £239 millions.. The war cost between £Bl millions and £B2 millions, while the surpluses during the Reform period totalled £32 millions, so that the capital account, apart from the war, shows an increase of £72 h millions in the national debt, plus £3O millions of spent surpluses. The speaker concluded with a reference to the abandonment of dairy control, and said that the Prime Minister could not get away uncontradicted in his statement that Parliament took from him the power to interfere. Mr. Coates had had the opportunity to retain the power, and would not take it. Control in tads case had produced the anomaly of a Government freehold in name, and land-nationalising in principle. The speaker condemned strongly sending Government officials on world trips, expenditure on Royal Commissions, and the huge amounts spent on getting members into Parliament.