SOCIALISATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 962, 3 May 1930, Page 8

SOCIALISATION

LABOUR POLICY GIVEN BY LEADER PRINCIPLES ENUNCIATED .Socialisation of State services in evolutionary stages is the object of the Labour Party, Mr. H. E. Holland, the leader of the party, told a highly enthusiastic audience which crowded the Newmarket Municipal Hall last evening. To support his contention that socialised State services could not - be logically opposed, no matter what Reform and United speakers said, Mr. Holland said the-Australian Commonwealth Bank had been successful during the Great War (as he had been told by. Sir Dennison Miller) in keeping overdraft rates down to 6 per cent.’ The Reform candidate for Parnell, Mr. W. P. Endean, had said the Socialists were determined to destroy everything with one change. This was untrue — the changes would be evolutionary. The best institutions of New Zealand —such as its hospital system and local governments —were highly socialised. Yet, Mr. Holland continued, Mr. Endean had said “trade union bosses" were determined to ride hard on the backs of the public,” and that “no right-thinking man would vote Labour." The answer to talk of this sort was in the history of Gre.at Britain, where Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Philip Snowden had shown themselves to be tho ablest of national leaders. Mr. Endedn, in the manner of most men unread in politics and economics, had said socialisation was a plank of Labour’s platform. It was no plank, but the objective of Labour, by evolutionary processes. Were the antiSocialists prepared to desoeialise tho excellent public institutions of New Zealand? Socialisation would be tho means of stabilising production and distribution. MR. BLOODWORTH'S EFFICIENCY Further, Mr. Endean had said Mr. T. Bloodworth, Labour’s candidate, was a leopard who could not change his spqts. Mr. Holland said tho most obvious thing of the campaign was the superiority of Mr. Bloodwortli in ability to Mr. Endean, and the United candiate, Mr. W. A. Donald. Mr. Bloodworth would be a party man of the greatest value. Mr. Holland judged the basis of the unemployment problem to b© the capacity of the Government to bring the men to work, for New Zealand had ample resources, and to organise finance. Reform’s immigration system hadt been wholly without plan. Labour advocated State-aided immigration without displacing New Zealand workers. Men should be employed only on essential works of an economic vqlue, and Labour would insist on the payment of standard wages. Labour said there should not be relief rates. Lowered wage standards would depreciate the market on which business interests depended. One instance where the United Government wasi paying relief sums on a work which was necessarily a public work, and . should be paid for at standard rates, was in road reconstruction in th© South Island earthquake area. The Government should make public week by week the full unemployed figures for each, centre. “Wo would take tlio unemployed, under expert supervision, to prepare Crown lands for occupation," proceeded Mr. Holland. “When the lands became available, th© claims for occupancy of the men who prepared the lands would be considered. A vigorous road construction, policy, with the provision, of access to back-country areas, would b© pursued. We would give more subsidies to local, bodies in engaging employment, but would lay it down that standard wages must be paid." Other objects of the Labour Party were the stimulation of industries to buttress agricultural production, the raising of the school age, the lowering of the age for the receiving of old-age pensions, the shortening of hours of labour with th© introduction of improved machinery, consideration of forming an employment board to find labour for the workless, and the introduction of legislation to provide for unemployed insurance. Speaking on unemployed insurance, Mr. Holland said that society had a debt to women and children when men were denied work. There -were anomalies to be removed in land and income tax, and relief should be given the small farmer. Labour proposed to subdivide large estates, to gain intensive settlement, and to extend the activities of the Agricultural Department to the advantage of settlers. Co-operative marketing and its tremendous bearing on New Zealand had to be studied. The Labour Party, in office, would seek to make arrangements with, the Government in Great Britain. Mr. Holland emphatically denied the suggestion that the Labour Party was a dictatorship. Labour members were to respect pledges, but on all questions on which they were not pledged they had the utmost freedom. It was not true to say that th© election of Mr. Bloodwbrth would precipitate a general election. Mr. Holland turned from a criticism of the failure of the Reform and the United Governments to a criticism of Mr. R. A. Wright, whose changes of political opinion were amusing, the speaker said. It was significant that Reform speakers, in asking for chances to proceed with the settlement, liad failed during 16 years on the Treasury benches to attempt to put into effect group settlement schemes. Mr. Endean had said that Labour was behind the United Party, and that one was referred to the Labour Party when on© went to Wellington to have a subject adjusted. *‘l am going to ask Mr. Endean publicly to give a specific instance," Mr. Holland said. “He is implying that there lias been a multiplicity of cases." Mr. Holland attacked compulsion in military training, and was particularly strong in his comment on the penalties imposed on divinity student objectors. Th© system was valueless for defence, and represented an economic loss. Referring to the Bible in schools question, Mr. Holland said Labour’s attitude was that the responsibility rested with parents. Th© influx of money advocated by Sir Joseph Ward would be disastrous by inflating the currency in New Zealand. Everything of value done by the Uniteds had been based on Labour ; principles. Three cheers were given Mr. Holland and Mr. Bloodworth, and a vote of confidnce in tho candidate was passed. The Deputy-Mayor of Newmarket, Mr. R. Newport, presided, on the platform were Mr. M. J. Savage, M.P., Mr. Walter Nash, M.P., Mr. W. J. Jordan, M.P., and Mr. F. N. Bartram. . . _ _