“SANTA CLAUS”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1938, Page 5

“SANTA CLAUS”

FACTOR IN NEW ZEALAND ELECTION COMMENT BY AUSTRALIAN PAPER IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC . FACTORS. (Received This Day. 10.55 a.m.) SYDNEY. This Day. The “Herald,” in a leader on the New Zealand elections, says Mr Savage can justifiably claim that the people, after three years’ experience of Labour control, have given an unmistakeable endorsement of his Government’s policy. The election results suggest that the popular fancy was more widely captured by the prospect of the Government’s generosity. Wholesale pensions and free medical services appeared, perhaps, more tangible than the necessary, but less clearly defined, burden of taxation which must be their inevitable corollary. A cynic explained President Roosevelt’s victory at the polls by dryly commenting that “No one wanted to kill Santa Claus.” The same explanation is not inapplicable to the success of Mr Savage, whose policy of higher wages, lower hours and a greatly increased dispensing of Government largesse provides the New Zealand “New Deal.”

Undoubtedly the Labour Government owes much of its victory, moreover, to the favourable economic conditions that have prevailed generally in New Zealand during its regime. The success or failure of Labour’s ambitious plans, however, will largely depend upon the economic factor, which is beyond the Government’s control.

AUSTRALIAN COMMENT. FEDERAL LABOUR LEADER’S CONGRATULATIONS. (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) CANBERRA, October 16. Mr J. Curtin, the Federal Labour Leader, warmly congratulated Mr Savage on the democratic way in which New Zealand had authorised the con-, tinuance of a programme, the foundations of which had been so admirably laid. “I am confident,” Mr Curtin said, “that New Zealand will derive great advantages from the policy which Mr Savage will now develop.” SPLENDID AUGURY. NEW SOUTH WALES LABOUR VIEW. SYDNEY, October 16. Trade Union leaders here are elated at the New Zealand Government’s victory and declare that it is a splendid augury for the revitalised New South Wales Labour movement under the leadership of Mr Heffron.