REFORM LAXITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 502, 3 November 1928, Page 10

REFORM LAXITY

MR. RICHARDS’S CRITICISM

jbespite the coolness of the evening, a fair-sized crowd listened attentively to Mr. A. S. Richards, the Labour candidate for Roskill, for an hour and a-quarter last evening at St. Andrew’s Road.

Throughout his address the candidate expounded every phase of his party’s policy and castigated severely the laxity of the Reform Government. Mr. Richards claimed that the Labour Party was the rightful heir to the principles of the Ballance-Seddon regime.

Dealing with income tax and the haphazard manner in which it had been conducted by the Government, the speaker deplored the fact that over a period of nine years, four wealthy families in Hawke’s Bay had had presented to them the sum of £420,000 by way of remission in income tax payments. “It is not the Labour Party’s intention to cripple the wealthy man,” continued the speaker, “rather is it our aim to make those pay who can decently do so, and yet still live comfortably.” Mentioning the United Party, Mr. Richards said that when it came to the ringing of the division bells this party would unhesitatingly follow Reform.

“You can look at it this way,” said the speaker. “While Sir Joseph XVard has been the representative of the large commercial concerns of the centres, so too has the Reform Government been the representative of the land barons of the Dominion.” A vote of thanks and confidence in the speaker was carried unanimously.