THE PLATFORM OF LABOUR

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1928, Page 11

THE PLATFORM OF LABOUR

CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENI .MR. R. SEMPLE ON THE WARPATH. PARTY MEET'S IN CONFERENCE; By Telegraph.— Prexs AMincLalion. Wellington, Last Night. The twelfth annual conference of the New Zealand Labour Party wah opened this morning. About 120 delegates from ail parts of the Dominion were in attendance. In welcoming the delegates, Hie president (Mr. R. Semple) expressed the hope that the decisions of the conference would strengthen the machinery of their organisation and the bonds of industrial and political unity. They had before them, he Baid, a stupendous task, and each and every one should endeavour to be as big as the task. The immediate object of the New Zealand Labour Party was: “The winning of New Zealand for the useful people and the establishment of society based upon social justice, conceding to every physically fit man and woman the right to work and assuring every mother of the nation of a home to shelter her offspring and the fullest and freest education.”

Mr. Semple declared that in the 1925 election a Press campaign of falsehood and slander was heaped upon the New Zealand Labour Party, and it was entirely due to the combination of the wealthy institutions of New Zealand' that the Coates Government succeeded at the polls. “They are now in their third year of office,” h© said. "Their brief political career has been a disappointment to their greatest supporters. They have offered no national constructive policy of any kind, and their lack of administrative capacity has been transparent. In short, the Coates Government will, I fee] sure, bo classed by the future historian as the greatest gang of political incompetents who ever occupied the Treasury benches of tlus Dominion.”

Mr. Semple declared that the Government was to a large extent responsible lor the thousands of unemployed. He referred to the immigration policy which, he said, had assisted in creating a permanent army of unemployed, and to the reduced rates of pay on relief works which, he said, had lowered the standard of living of those concerned to scmistarvation.

Within the last five years, said Mr. Semple, over 13,000 people had been driven off the land through inflated land values and high interest ehargcg. That in itself was conclusive proof that the Government had failed miserably to settle the people on the land. One of the Government’s first actions was to increase the rate of interest on all State advances. This meant higlier rents, and at the same time they had removed the safeguard of the Rent Restriction Act, giving the uiiserupwlom landlord power to increase his rents.

Mr. Semple went on to refer to education. One of the first problems that should attract the attention of thinking 'people, he said, was the overcrowding of the schools and unemployment amongst teachers. They were toM that there was no money for more achoole and other improvements, but the same Government could pledge the country te £ 1,600,000 towards the Singapore base, thug assisting in creating a military machine that could servo no other purpose than to create racial antagonism and assist in promoting future wars. New Zealand, he said, had wasted £8.000,000 in our junuior conscription policy in New Zealand since the inception of th© Act. New Zealand and Australia Were the only self-governing parte of the Empire where peace-time conscription of boys was enforced. The only policy that would eave modern civilisation was international disarmament, which could only be brought about by the advocacy of peace in every nation in the world.