POLITICAL ADDRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 September 1938, Page 9

POLITICAL ADDRESS

MR MAZENGARB IN MASTERTON LAST NIGHT OPERA HOUSE CROWDED OUT MR SAVAGE AND SOCIALISM “Our Socialist opponents want to fight this election with the cloak of Liberalism upon them, but how can they when their leader has already dressed himself in the political garments of the notorious Mr J. T. Lang, one-time Premier of New South Wales,” asked Mr O. C. Mazengarb, Nationalist candidate for Wellington Suburbs, in an address to a very large audience in the Opera House last night. The Mayor, Mr T. Jordan, presided, and Mr J. H. Irving, National Party candidate for the Masterton seat, was also on the stage. Mr Lang was a socialist who had a plan to overcome the effects of the depression in Australia, added Mr Mazengarb. He promised the farmers a “stabilised price” and a “guaranteed market.” In money matters he refused to be harnessed to orthodox methods. The people put their simple faith in him just as we were being asked to put our trust in Mr Savage. But when Mr Lang started to kick over the traces, he brought New South Wales to the brink of disaster, and the people refused to trust him any longer. To be fair to Mr Lang, there was a difference between the conditions which obtained during his regime and those now ruling in New Zealand. Mr Lang enjoyed his second period of office from 1930 to 1932 during a period of low prices. Mr Savage on the other hand, had the good fortune to come into power on a wave of prosperity which had enabled him to postpone the day of reckoning for a brief while. But if the utterances of the two leaders were compared it would be obvious that their ideas had come out of the same socialist mould and already in New Zealand could be seen beginnings of what happened in Australia when Mr Lang tried to go the full journey.

“PLEDGED TO SOCIALISM” Mr Savage used to be secretary of the Socialist Party in Auckland. When he took office as Prime Minister the official organ of the Labour Party stated that he and his Ministers were “pledged to socialism.” But, like Mr Lang, w,hen he faced the electors in this momentous campaign he wanted io avoid the real issue and back it both ways. Neither leader had recognised any limit to the' amount of money which could be spent on public works because they believed that that was the best way to “improve the buying power of the people,” and add to the “national income.” So thought the people of New South Wales until Mr Lang defaulted in the payment of pensions and the salaries of civil servants. , , . Mr Lang “bounced the ball so effectively that he drove nine million pounds of fixed deposits out of the State and ended up by being unable to raise loans elsewhere. Here in New Zealand Mr Savage’s threats had already caused a flight of capital from the country and all the banks were now striving to prevent any more going out. Mr Lang “stimulated” industry by taxing it, and covering it with such restrictions that he frightened private enterprise away. That was exactly what Mr Savage was doing. FACTORY EMPLOYMENT In the five years following the dismissal of Mr Lang, factory employment in Australia increased by 56 per cent, wages by 61 per cent and output by 60 per cent. It was only under a Government which encouraged private enterprise that such a result as that could be shown. Of course, it might be said that part of the increase in the production of Australian factories was due to the markets in New Zealand which had been opened up by Mr Savage’s industrial legislation. Labour could take that point if they liked, but he would' sooner see our factory production increased for the employment of our own people and for the supply of our own markets. It was a peculiar coincidence that far from reducing the tax on wages, both men should have increased it to Is in the £l. Mr Savage, however, had gone further. He had also broken his election pledges by retaining the sales tax and, in spite of his assurance that “further taxation was out of the question,” he had imposed a new company tax of Is in the £l, which would further restrict the avenue for industrial employment. The leaders paid a poor compliment to the intelligence of the electors. In Australia the workers discovered that their standard of living was lowered and their lot made much harder under Mr Lang’s regime. They found more humanity and prosperity under the National Government which succeeded Mr Lang. It was just as true in New Zealand as it was in Australia and it had always been everywhere in the world, that a policy of extravagant spending must inevitably recoil upon the heads of the middle classes, particularly the workers. Why should the people of New Zealand have to go through the distressing experience of other lands in order to find that out? WHERE THEY DIFFER Many statements could be quoted to show that there was no difference between the ideals and the political programme of those twin socialists. But there was one respect in which Mr Savage made personal claims which were not made by Mr Lang. “I have not been able to find out,” added Mr Mazengarb, “that the New South Wales socialist ever carried his claims as far as Mr Savage did in his recent tour of the North Island by quoting from the Sermon on the Mount and alleging that he was “following in the footsteps of the Great Teacher, who lived 2,000 years ago.” In June last Mr Savage was reported as having made several speeches in country districts proclaiming himself as a disciple of “the Greatest Man than ever lived,” and promising to play his part in “establishing the Kingdom of God on earth,” and stating that “he should be supported by everyone that claimed the name ol a Christian.” Before the month was out, however, he was back in Parliament reproving Sir Alfred Ransom for having introduced religion into the issue which (said Mr Savage) was “a very questionable way of fighting an election, as it was not playing the game.” It was difficult to reconcile Mr Savage’s principles with his own practice.

“BARABBAS AND THE THIEF”

Mr Lang’s party had an official newspaper in Sydney the same as Mr Savage and his colleagues had in New Zealand. He was sure, however, that the Sydney newspaper did not have the impudence to publish any statement likening Mr Lang to “Christ our Saviour” and classing the Leader of the Opposition with “Barabbas and the Thief.” The New Zealand Labour

Party’s paper the “Standard” had descended to those analogies. The editor of the paper now said that the allusion was “wholly .political,” and he blamed the author of the statement. Why blame the author when it was Mr Savage himself who, by the speeches that had been quoted, put the very idea into the mind of the author II was no wonder that in that matter, as in many others, thousands of people who voted Labour at the last election were now saying “they had gone too far,”