LABOUR IN KAIPARA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 461, 17 September 1928, Page 13

LABOUR IN KAIPARA

GOVERNMENT LAND POLICY ATTACKED (From Our Own Correspondent) DARGAVILLE, Sunday. A large audience listened to the first address in Dargaville of Mr. J. G. Barclay, the official Labour candidate for Kaipara, on Friday evening. Mr. A. C. Paul presided. The candidate received a very attentive hearing and at the conclusion of his address a motion of thanks and an expression of confidence in him as a candidate for the seat was passed. Mr. Barclay vigorously criticised the Reform Party, especially in regard to its land policy, instancing the failure of the Government’s policy in regard to the Te Wiri block at Gisborne. In regard to the Tangowahine block he said he had asked the following questions throughout the electorate and would continue to ask them, i.e., (1) Did three valuers from the North value it and report that a large portion of it was unsuitable for closer settlement? (2) Did the Government bring up a valuer from Taranaki, who valued it at £1 an acre higher than local valuers, and the Government bought it? (3) Why are they holding it off the market until after the election; was it that they did not want a repetition of the Te Wiri failure? In further reference to the Tangowahine block, Mr. Barclay said that the grazing of the block* while it was waiting to be cut up and settled, had been let to friends of the Government. He contended that grazing rights should have been let by public tender to give everyone an equal chance. He also maintained that the land was not suitable for closer settleThe speaker defined the Labour Party’s land policy at some length, and expressed his party’s advocacy of the entry of the State into the land agency business.

He said he was opposed to the Bible-in-Schools Bill and in favour of a two-issue ballot paper, and a bare majority at the poll in regard to the licensing question.