The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1930 SQUEEZING A LEMON

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 938, 3 April 1930, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1930 SQUEEZING A LEMON

h LEMON m tlie hard hands of the Labour Party describes the “ position and plight of the United Government. And Labour has determined to squeeze the lemon for all that the acidulous, thick-skinned fruit is worth. No one need blame the party for its tactics. Opportunity to gain something more legislatively for workers than Labour, as a restricted political force, has ever gained before, has come like a welcome gift, and the party has decided to accept it. • That is all there is to the latest device for maintaining a weak and hopeless minority Government in power. As Sir Thomas Sidey recently phrased it, with a kind of sad philosophy, the Ward Administration holds office on sufferance. Apparently it has become a rule in party polities that it is better to suffer on the Treasury benches than to wander hungry in the wilderness. The Government will suffer to the bitter end, and console itself by calling its suffering a sacrifice in the best interests of the country. Politically, it is never difficult to find a plausible excuse for tolerating conditions which, in other' activities, would be intolerable. The maxim of all political parties nowadays is: “Hang on, boys, and hang together!” In the present circumstances, however, the process of squeezing the lemon threatens to be severe. A definite statement of Labour’s Parliamentary attitude toward tlie disabled Government has been made by the party’s first lieutenant in the House, Mr. Peter Fraser, member for Wellington Central, who has sorted out the echoes of many official voices on the same subject and attempted to make the executive speak with one voice. A few weeks ago Mr. H. Holland, the Labour Leader, spoke as though an early defeat of the Government was as inevitable as it was essential. Indeed, he not only called up the artillery into an attacking position, but gave orders for an ample supply of ammunition. Other members of the Labour wing of the Opposition also talked of the prospect of an emergency general election and encouraged the impression that the Government’s fate was sealed. There was in the varied comment a dash of that contradiction which marks many and most political utterances. Someone with some authority had to straighten out the confusion of opinions and fix a focal ,point of unity in policy. Mr. Fraser has done it and, from the narrow viewpoint of his party, has done it extraordinarily well. He has dispersed obscurity and made crystal clear the whole meaning and truth of the Labour Party’s policy. This is nothing more nor less than the intention and the fact that Labour in the House of Representatives will continue to keep the Government in power if and only the Administration legislates on terms and in a direction dictated by Labour. In other words, Labour will be content remain on the crossbenches so long as it virtually is the power that moves the automaton in office. It will take the juice without being the lemon. Most observers of a preposterous situation will agree that Labour seeks to drive a hard bargain, As the price of support it demands that the Government shall introduce legislative measures which represent main planks in Labour’s policy platform. There must be an abolition of such conditions in unemployment relief works as are considered by Labour to be breaches of awards and industrial agreements; also there must be introduced to Parliament “a much-needed and long-overdue Workers’ Compensation Act” ; an improvement and a strengthening of the Pensions and Family Allowances Acts; and the abolition of compulsory military training. These demands may not represent the limit of the party’s bargaining terms (it is not likely that Labour lias forgotten the questions of unemployment and the provision of unemployment pay), but they are certainly sufficient for one session of Parliament. Attached to the bargain is the threat that gives harassed Governments an ague. This is a reminder by Mr. Fraser that if a Labour vote of no-confidence were supported and carried by the other parties in the Opposition, there would be the possibility of the Labour Leader being sent for to form a Government. No doubt that possibility, however remote, was raised in order to provide for the Ward Ministry an excuse that if it refused to be squeezed, a Labour Government would come in and strip all the best trees in tire State orchard. It will be interesting to see how the United Government meets the process of hard squeezing.

HEALTH WORK AMONG MAORIS

THE representations made by the Akarana Maori Association to the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, Minister of Health, in favour of the transfer of the headquarters of the Division of Maori Hygiene to Auckland from Wellington have probably impressed Mr. Stallworthy more than earlier holders of his office. In the three years since the move to Wellington was made, there has been no demonstration that the administration of the division has been increased in efficiency by the change. It is only necessary to study the figures showing the distribution of Maori population to realise the advantages of conducting the health services among the Maoris from the strategic centre, which is Auckland. Of the total Maori population of 65,693, all but 2,900 live in the North Island. Of the North Island Maoris, the bulk (47,116) lives in the Auckland Province, mainly in the North Auckland and Bay of Plenty districts. In Hawke’s Bay there are 4,970 Maoris, in Taranaki 3,850, and in Wellington 6,850. The total of Maoris outside the Auckland Province is barely a fourth of those inside its borders. Yet a nurse cannot be shifted from Mangere to Pukekohe without reference to the administrative bureau in Wellington. It is a ridiculous and almost cqmical situation .

In spite of this handicap, the division continues to do good work, but tlie fact that ample scope for its efforts still remains, and will remain for many years yet, if not for generations, is disclosed by the verdict of a coroner at an inquest on the death of a Maori infant in the Whakatane district. Tire ignorance of the parents on the question of obstetrics and tlie care of the child were found to have been the cause of its death. In the old days Maori women made light of the ordeal of childbirth, but their contact with civilisation has had the inevitable effect of raising the ratio of maternal and infant mortality at birth, an appalling thing for white races to contemplate, since it has happened within a comparatively short span of time.

While the education and care of white mothers is being studied, the welfare of Maori women should not be neglected. This was one of the points put before the Minister by the Akarana Maori Association yesterday, and Mr. Stallworthy viewed it sympathetically. As to the other questions raised, Mr. Stallworthy has only to study the situation to see the value of a change in the location of headquarters, and of smaller administrative districts as an aid to efficiency.