HAIL OF CRITICISM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 501, 2 November 1928, Page 11

HAIL OF CRITICISM

“REFORM’S FINANCE MUDDLE” MR. W. E. PARRY IN ACTION Referring scathingly to Government borrowing, the country’s land settlement conditions, and the treatment of unemployment, Mr. W. E. Parry, M.P., Labour’s candidate for Auckland Centr.al, opened his campaign in the Trades Hall last evening by bringing to bear on the Reform Party a trenchant hail of criticism. The United! Party he classed as being coupled with Reform against Labour.

An audience that filled the hall com•rtably listened to the speaker with

close attention, and an orderly meeting closed enthusiastically with a vote of thanks and confidence in Mr. Parry. After being introduced by the chairman, Mr. D. Wilson, who referred to the candidate’s record of service, Mr. Parry said that after nine years’ experience in Parliament he felt more strongly than ever that the principles for which the Labour Party stood were the best in the country. Mr. A. J. Stallworthy had made reference to the speaker having described himself as “loving the Reform Party.” No such statement had been made—the speaker had said only that he had the “highest respect” for the Reform and United leaders. Such an allegation from Mr. Stallworthy was not fair, and required a withdrawal. PUBLIC DEBT

When Reform came into power its policy was a vigorous one, and it criticised severely the retiring party’s borrowing. The public debt was then £84,000,000. After 16 years it had risen to £251,000,000. Some people would say that it was the same elsewhere, but this was not so. Britain’s debt had been reduced between 1920 and 1927 by £209,000,000, and Canada’s debt had been reduced in the same period by £21,000,000, while New Zealand’s debt had been increased by £50,000,000. He would take no exception to this if there had been a corresponding increase in production, but the production a head of population had not increased since 1911. In 1926 it was not so large.

“Recently Professor Murphy, a Reform supporter, produced a table covering the period 1921-27. The exports were £335,000,000, and the imports £316,000,000,” he continued. “But there was the amount of interest on the external debt which, for the same period, was £43,000,000. Therefore the real position was that New Zealand was £25,000,000 to the bad.

He challenged any Reform candidate to produce that table for the electors. Unless they did that, they were just trying to hoodwink the public. Professor Murphy had said that the true deficit was greater, as freights, etc., had to be added. “My case is based on this foundation,” he declared. “I would appeal to the people to realise the danger ahead—the danger made clear by Professor Murphy.

While taxatidn on the wealthy people had been reduced, for the worker it had been increased, said Mr. Parry. Customs taxation amounted to £ 8,000,000 last year, and a family of four people had paid £22 17s. Taking the average wage of the worker as £ 200 a year, it meant that the family paid 115 per cent, in Customs taxation. A man with £2,000 a year paid IS per cent. The average worker at £4 a week thought he was not being taxed, but his wife paid the tax to the Customs when she bought goods for the household. LAND MONOPOLY There were acres under occupation in New- Zealand and 3,100 people owned 24,000,000 acres, said Mr. Parry dealing with land monopoly in the country. He gave figures showing the surplus population in England and referred to Lord Lovat’s appeal to New Zealand to help in absorbing the surplus. Yet Lord Lovat was the tenth largest land owner in Britain. He owned 18,500 acres. A little over 3,000 people owned over half of New Zealand, . which meant that the country was following the old Tory principles that had obtained at Home. Turning to finance, Mr. Parry said that one of the first acts of the Government had been the raising of the interest by ,11 per cent., and the unemployed army had begun to grow at once. Employers were jambed by the banking institutions, and had been obliged to dispense with men. Before last election, Mr. Poison—considered an awkward person in the political arena—was put on a commission to go into the question of an agricultural bank. The banks were against the proposition, but the chairman of the commission was the chairman of the associated banks. As Mr. Savage had pointed out, the Government paid £7,000 for this report. Labour could set up a State Bank with little more than its cost. Labour was asked where the money to * establish a State Bank would come from. Whence had come the money to establish the Post Office Savings Bank as the largest bank in New Zealand? UNEMPLOYMENT

Unemployment ’was referred to by Mr. Parry, who said that in 1926-27. the Government brought 10,000 people’ to New Zealand, and in the same period 10,000 were forced off the land. Then the Government made provision for 1,500 workers and said it had “grappled with the problem.” The Prime Minister had said in the House that the unemployed in New Zealand numbered something over 4,000, but this estimate was incorrect. At the time the number in Auckland alone was over 3,000. Air. Coates had also let people believe that married men were to receive 12s and single men 9s a day, but members in the House were holding men’s pay envelopes containing Id for a month’s work, after cookhouse charges and other expenses had been paid. It was a black mark against Reform for all time. In closing, Mr. Parry said the United Party’s borrowing policy was nothing short of political humbug. It was the loosest, and most impracticable scheme of its kind he had ever heard of.