LABOUR’S POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1938, Page 9

LABOUR’S POLICY

MR BEN ROBERTS SPEAKS AT UPPER HUTT. SECURITY AND STABILITY. An enthusiastic reception was accorded Mr Ben Renerts, Labour candidate for the Wairarapa seat, when, with the Mayor, Mr Peter Robertson, he entered the Majestic Theatre, Tapper Hutt, last night. The theatre was three-quarters full. Mr Roberts urged his hearers not to forget the last slump, and to vote for the party that had enabled the people to rise above it. Labour stood for humanitarian principles, while the National Party stood for money values. A vote for Labour would be the safeguarding of the common people from the ravages of a slump period. Labour, continued Mr Roberts, stood for good government, planned production and distribution, and an equitable share by the people in the things produced. Not only did Labour stand for democracy, but it stood also for increased production. There would be no indiscriminate using of the “printing press.” Money would be issued only with consumers’ goods and assets and services behind it. The policy of the Government was to increase security and stability to even out the booms and slumps. This would be achieved by the guaranteed price and the Social Security Act. The depression, Mr Roberts said, was a money depression, and not a goods depression. The previous Government cut wages and salaries, and stopped works and abdicated to overseas moneylenders and to Tooley Street interests.

Mr Roberts traced the “wages’ cutting and unemployment-creating policy” of the previous Government, and said also that private enterprise had failed to live up to its responsibilities. He stressed the importance of democratic national control of the Dominion’s financial system as evidenced in the Government’s policy with -the Reserve Bank. Such control, he said, would enable the country to escape the effects of overseas slumps. In his opinion the broadcasting of Parliamentary debates would have the effect of causing many people, who in 1935 voted Nationalist or Democrat, this time to vote for the Labour Party, because they had been made aware of things that were never reported in the newspapers. Confidence in Mr Roberts was unanimously voted, and cheers were given for him and the Prime Minister.