LABOUR AND REFORM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 420, 31 July 1928, Page 14

LABOUR AND REFORM

ONLY REAL FIGHT, SAYS MR. HOLLAND FINANCIAL DICTATORSHIP (From Our Own Correspondent.) PALMERSTON N.. Monday. j There is no truth whatever in the rumours of his leaving the Bulier constituency to contest the j Dunedin South electorate, said Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, addressing a meeting here this evening. He also severely criticised the Government’s financial policy. Mr. Holland pointed out that the real political fight of to-day is between Labour and Reform, and quoted figures to show that the Nationalists, either as a whole or in the majority, almost invariably voted with the Government. Aggregation of land was also laid to the blame of the Government, which Mr. Holland accused of withholding statistical information. The excuse was that it was misleading, but it had taken Reform 16 years to discover this. Reform claimed to have given the farmers the freehold, but actually it was a mortgage-hold. A financial dictatorship was running the country, said Mr. Holland, who asserted that the Government, in reducing the maximum for Savings Bank deposits, and then borrowing at a higher rate of interest, had ir.ade money dearer. Mr. Holland also held that the banks had been given advantageous terms in the purchase of rural bonds, the underwriters obtaining bonds at .£1 per cent, better than the price offered to the public. The Government stood condemned, said Mr. Holland, for its action in connection with the scare radiogram sent from Samoa to a New Zealand morning paper. Although this sensational message grossly libelled the Samoans, and the sender had been reprimanded, the Government left it to be inferred that, after all, there might be something in the report. Mr. Holland dealt v/ith various subjects, mainly on lines of previous addresses, and concluded with a statement of the Labour platform.