POLITICAL CAMPAIGN.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1922, Page 8

POLITICAL CAMPAIGN.

THE EGMONT ELECTORATE, ADDRESS BY MR. D. ASTBURY, The Liberal-Labor candidate for the Egmont electorate, Mr. D. L. A. Astbury, opened his campaign at Eltham on Wednesday night. The candidate referred briefly to the three political parties, their leaders, aims and objects. As far as he could gather from the utterances of the Official Labor Party and their printed programmes their aim was to nationalise all means of production, distribution and exchange, but while he agreed that such public utilities as railways, post office, telegraphs, insurance, banking and shipping were forms of national life upon which the State might enter, yet it would be a deplorable failure if it took upon itself the whole of the management of their producing, industrial, and exchange efforts. Further some of their pronouncements seemed to point to bloody revolution, to which he was utterly ’ opposed. Let them bring about any desired changes by evolution, not revolution. The majority of the people of New Zealand—if given their rightful proportion of votes by a correct system of representation —stood behind the united Liberal-Labor Party, whose ideals and principles were enunciated in such watchwords as “The greatest good for the greatest number,” and which had placed upon the Statute Book all the best and most progressive of the country’s legislation. (Applause.) The Conservative Party had long been masquerading under the name of the Reform Party. They were Conservatives in the worst meaning of the word, having always bitterly opposed any progressive measure brought forward in the interests of the people and held on to those which were bad. The Liberal Cabinet, which had introduced many of their best democratic laws, had been described by the Conservatives of that day as “The Seven Devils of Socialism.” They were Reformers who never reformed. Among the laws placed upon the Statute Book by the Liberal Party were the Dairy Industry Act, Factories Act ' (providing for the protection of children, proper sanitary accommodation, limiting hours and creating the weekly half-holiday), Lands for Settlement/ Penny . Postage. Adulteration Prevention ‘Workmen’s Wages,. Advances to Settlers, Old Age Pensions. Workers’ Compensation. Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration. Bank of New Zealand Guarantee, State Fire Insurance, Workers’ Dwellings, Public Debt Extinction, and National Provident Fund. They had extended the franchise to women, and abolished the life term in the Legislative Council.

TAXATION AND BORROWING. When the Conservatives were in power the burden of their cry was the excessive taxation and borrowing, but the public records showed that since the party had taken office the average annual increase, apart from the war debt of £81,000,000. was £4,870,762. The debt per head had increased from £/8 13s Mto £169 5s 5d in 1921. Taxation in 1911 was £4 16s lid per head. In 1019 when Mr. Massey took office it increased to £5 3s 10d. in 1913 was £o Is 2d, and in 1920 svas £l4 2s 9d Departmental expenditure in 1914-15 was £- 8-4 000. but in 1919-21 had increased to £15.592.000. The Hisrh Commissioners office in 1921 cost the country £45.000. Tn addition to Ins salary ot £•■>000 the Commissioner received £dQD for" entertaining. £5OO for travelling expenses. £3OO for motor ears. £l-o toi donations, and £lOOO to furnish his house more comfortably At the same time settlers in the back districts could not obtain money to clear their roads and erect schools. They recently offei ■ f d the Omoana settlers £s>oo to clear their roads ffom the damage done by the waterspout, but on the condition that the council found another £o . the council appeared not to have fiOO pennies he took it that the .setter.: were still waiting. One settler nad told him that the Government nad granted £3O in one ease to clear slips oil nine miles of road. The maladministration of the Stores Department .had been emphasised in the report of the Controls and Auditor-General. In <me yeai, 1922 stores to the value of £37,879 and cash to the amount of £11.619 written off as irrecoverable, no receipts being -procurable. The present form in which the public accounts were presented made it impossible to include any ieference to the value of the stores and property of the Government, and tol Parliament to judge of the effic.ent oi other working of the Department. But Mr. Massey took no action.

THE INDUSTRIES COMMITTEE. Mr Astbury then read extracts from the report of' the Industries Committee set up in 1918, with Mr. C. A. Wilkinson as chairman, and proceeded to enumerate the recommendations made by the committee, including the urgent necessity for progress with the provision of 'hydro-electricity, but the work was proceeding very slowly. An immigration policy had been adopted to provide labor, but the essential money not havin’ been furnished, the only result was additional unemployment. The revision of the Customs duties, the nationalisation of the coal industry, the opening of a scientific dairy school, legislation to cope with noxious weeds, the creation of a Board of Science and Industry the establishment of a State steamship line, and a -State, ferry service were other recommendations ot tne committee, but nothing had teen done in connection with any of them. 1 lie committee had made valuable recomendations in regard to the policy ot the railwavs. and said the subiect required immediate attention, including the removal of anomalies in freights, but nothing -was done. The commit tee also recommended the alteration of the subsidy to local bodies, giving the largest subsidy to those who raised the largest rates,-which had been repeatedly for by those authorities. Mr. Massey s response was “.Something ” must be clone!” (Laughter and applause.) The committee also emphasised the necessity to take into consideration questions of currency and banking. Had Mr. hfassey taken" any action? Not he! The moneyed interests were too strong for him.

’ BANKING AND SHIPPING. Continuing. Mr Astbury dealt exhaustively with some banking cinestions. He pointed out that huge profits were being macle by the Bank of New Zealand and similar institutions, and Mr. Massey must know of the success of the Commonwealth Bank, started in 1914.. It had made continuous and growing profits, and had yet kept the rate of interest on overctrafts at 6 per cent. To date the .Commonwealth Bank had a reserve -fund of over £2 000,000. a redempition fund of a similar amount, and was staadily and surely becoming the peo-

pie’s bank. It was started with a loa.fi Of £lO,OOO, and yet it was quite within the realms of possibility that in. time the redemption fund would wipe out the national debt. What a saving it would have been to the people of this country had a national bank thus kept interest down to 6 per cent? If New Zealand started a bank of its own and gave it the national business the rest would soon follow.

Shipping was the next question dealt with by the speaker, who emphasised the saving effected for Australian producers through the inauguration of the Commonwealth service, which seriously affected the interests of the combine. Meanwhile New Zealand producers were to-day paying freight amounting to double and treble the 1914 rates. Nor could they expect the Conservative Government to do anything to alienate the sympathy of their supporters, whose vested interests would be endangered by any attempt to remedy this state of affairs. (A voice: “He has too many shares in it!”) “I don’t know, my friend,” responded Mr. Astbury, “but I know he is frightened of those who have.” (Laughter and applause.) THE RAILWAYS. The deficiency on the railways on the past year’s working, £1,021,156, was described by the Minister as an aftermath of the war, but that was a lie! It was due to inefficiency and anomalies. But the Minister had a brilliant idea and commenced to charge freight on loaves of bread which school children were carrying home to their parents. Thus would he make the railways pay! He (the speaker) had recently seen it suggested in a newspaper that the railways should be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the reduction of the national debt. It was a scandalous suggestion. Was the Massey administration going to run the railways at such a loss that the people would sell the main arteries of the country to a moneyed syndicate for 80 or 100 millions'sterling? He did not know if the article in question was inspired. If it was it alone -should condemn the Government before every right-thinking man and woman. Under the Liberal regime those railways paid 3 per cent. The present Minister of Railways had proved himself a ghastly and costly failure. _ SOLDIER SETTLEMENT. In spite of the Minister’s statement that everything is well with the soldiers’ settlements, all the practical men realised that this was contrary to fact. The Government, by its own policy, had aggravated the inflation of land values, of which it had been warned by its own officers, and having purchased the land for cash at double its present value, had loaded many of the returned men with a financial burden they could not possibly bear. Heavy losses must be sustained on both land and stock, despite the sacrifices made by the men in their hopeless attempts' to carry on. The Government should write down the values of the farms and place the loss to the national debt. This appeared to be the only way out of the difficulty in which the Massey Government had placed them. Referring to Parliamentary representation. Mr. Astbury said the “first past the post” had proved itself grossly unfair, seeing that a minority vote could return a member to the House, and in place of this the Liberal Party proposed proportional representation, which had been successfully in /operation in Tasmania for several years. He described the method at some length, and then proceeded to argue that the Reform Party at. present ruled by a minority vote, giving figures to prove this contention. At the 1919 election 206,4’61 votes were cast for Reform candidates. 196.837 for the Liberal, and 127,024 for the Labor candidates. One injustice in the electoral system was that in boroughs all adults could vote at harbor and electrical board elections, but in country districts only ratepayers could exercise a vote.

TAXATION OF MORTGAGES. The taxation of the occupier of land, who is also a mortgagor, upon the improved value of the land, without recognising the indebtedness was unjust, declared Mr. Astbury, and called for immediate remedy. The tax was applied to reach those who endeavored to evade the graduated land tax by mortgaging their landed estates to nearly their full value, to relatives. He considered that the amount of the mortgage should be apportioned as so much invested on the unimproved value of land, and so much on th? improvements, and that portion allowed for improvements should be exempt from taxation. If a progressive land tax was made heavy on persons owning £BO9O worth of unimproved land values/ they would then have an automafic system that would operate to i bring lands into the market for use. Tills'" policy would benefit the whole community. In regard to education, Mr. Astbury said he'"had always been of the opinion that the education system should be free, secular and undenominational, but could not help thinking that at present money was being lavished on secondary education and ornate buildings at the main centres. Mr. A. H. Guy then moved “a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Astbury for his strong criticism of the Massey party; also that this meeting has every eonfi'tenef in the Liberal Party and Mr. Astbury as our member.” Mr. Hunter seconded, and the motion was carried by acclamation.