REFORM ATTACKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 420, 31 July 1928, Page 8

REFORM ATTACKED

MR. VEITCH A VIGOROUS CRITIC ™ SETTLEMENT AND FINANCE Press Association. NEW PLYMOUTH, To-day. The Reform Party ana methods were attacked by ji? '' • A - ' eitch in an address m about 100 electors of the T l ° naki electorate last night t?*' speaker also dealt with' planks in the platform of the net party, and intimated that th party leader would be selected in the near future, in Wellington. „ a meeting of candidate? seated to contest seats at the election The three great problems f ac in, the country to-day, said Mr.v vet 7 i t 7 were land settlement, unemployment! and finance, which were so closelv co-related that they must be taken to. gether. Since coming into power the Reform Party had spent £107.000 m in capital expenditure, exclusive of £83,000,000 spent on the war, and had very little to show for it

The trouble was the money had been spent on popular amenities Z in helping the farmers to increase production. Great sums had been spent to make good highways, with the result that motor competition had caused the railways to lose £7SO,OOD last year. Huge expenditure on ney railway works at Auckland and Wellington did not produce another box of butter or crate of cheese. It wanot picture shows that lured country people to town, but high interest rates, excessive taxation, and loss of land values.

The Reform Party’s schemes of rural credit, rural intermediate credits, and rural advances, provided the farmer with everything he wanted except money, which was the only thing he did want. The whole system of finance required amending, said Mr. Veitch,and the present system of commercial banking by’ associated banks should be replaced by a triple system including agricultural banking, industrial banking and banking as carried ou to-day by chartered banks. All thrywere required. The present system catered really for the commercial Interests alone, resulting in over-im-portation when times were good and unemployment when times were bad. The new party proposed to establish agricultural banking on sound lines that would not inflate the currency, but would attract money te farm lands. The land policy must be aggressive. Rural lands should be divided into three classes: '(a) lands urgently required for subdivision, (b) land suitable for subdivision but not urgently required, and (c) all other rural land. Money should be taken from State Advances and Rural Credit Funds to start a land settlement account in the agricultural bank. A group of settlers wanting to buy Class A land -could purchase at the price agreed upon, or if the owner were not agreeable the price to be fixed by arbitration. The land could then be

either purchased by deposit, on the amortisation principle of payment over, say, 30 years, or if the individual were without capital, he could lease until in a position to pay a deposit on the purchase.. A further report was needed in the electoral system, both the second ballot and proportional representation being worthy of consideration. Immigration was a good thing, but must be stopped until unemployment ceases, and then only encouraged along with the encouragement of a flow of British capital into the nonunion. The new party intended to do some ( thing in the way of humanitarian legislation, especially regarding workers’ compensation, hut this must not be hurried; or more unemployment would result.