WAIRARAPA SEAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1943, Page 3

WAIRARAPA SEAT

LABOUR CANDIDATE SPEAKS AT UPPER HUTT SURVEY OF GOVERNMENT’S RECORD. MR J. A. LEE CRITICISED. The holding of the election was the best course to take, in face of the withdrawal of the Leader of the Opposition from the War Administration, said Mr B. Roberts, Labour candidate for Wairarapa, at Upper Hutt on Thursday night. The meeting, it was claimed, was one of the largest political gatherings seen in Upper Hutt for many years. - “The war effort might have been carried on,” said Mr Roberts, “but it is better to give the public the opportunity to say if they want to swap horses crossing the stream. There is only one issue at the moment and that is to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and I say that those who have carried it through successfully to its present stage should beo the people to carry it to its conclusion.” Mr Roberts claimed that the propaganda of the National Party said little of the Avar. One pamphlet of 21 pages said a little about it in the introduction. The leopard had changed its spots, and the National Party had adopted a number of the Labour planks, but, he suggested, the party which had straightened out the depression tangle and had established social security and the right to work should carry on. Dealing with the large number of Independent candidates which had come forward in the election, Mr Roberts paid particular attention to the Democratic Labour Party and its leader, Mr John Lee. “Jack Lee is a great orator,” he declared, “but he is no administrator. Whenever I have heard him arguing points with Mr Nash in caucus he wasn’t in the same street with Walter. He hasn’t the ability to put measures on the Statute Book.” (Some dissent). “There is only one enemy to the Labour Party in New Zealand today and that is Jack Lee and his party. A vote for Jack Lee is a vote for the National Party.” Dealing with accusations of waste in the Internal Marketing Department, , the speaker said that if the public and the Press knew of the sudden demands and countermands for supplies through , war needs, there would not be so much . talk of waste. Restrictions had to be imposed when it was impossible, for ] security reasons, to tell the people why j they were imposed. If the public knew j the reasons there would be none of 'the < criticism of the department. < The problem of the disposal of in- , creasing primary production lay not in , the finding of other markets, but in the | expansion of the home and British j markets by the raising of the standards . of living in the two countries. He said < that with qualification of the provisions ] of the Atlantic Charter, which might j lead to special direction in distribution. ; He accused financial circles of the j Dominion of putting every obstacle ; they could in the way of Mr Nash, ] when the Minister of Finance went to < Britain to try and straighten out New ' Zealand’s tangled debt situation. “And then,” said the candidate, “Sir Kings- I ley Wood wrote to the Prime Minister i thanking New Zealand for being one 1 of the promptest in the settlement of = her Avar advances. And they say La- ; hour can’t govern. The people have < responded to the great demands of the i war—and they only respond to good leadership.” Mr Roberts claimed that in his address to the National Party conference, its president, Mr Gordon, had advocated the stabilisation of land values on the basis of productive value, and similar approval of principle had been made by the Leader of the Opposition on one occasion, and by the president of the Farmers’ Union, Mr Mulholland. He claimed that more farmers had been made solvent by the Labour Government than in the Avhole of the previous 50 years. Mr Roberts said that control of the Reserve Bank sufficed the party purpose of monetary control, and that the loans prevented inflation through idle money while at the same time ensuring that the money would be at the disposal of the people in four or five years’ time. The meeting gave Mr Roberts an ovation when he resumed his seat and on the motion of Captain W. Francis, seconded by Mr W. G. Whittleston, a unanimous vote of thanks was passed to the candidate and confidence was expressed in him as- the member for Wairarapa. Cheers were also given for the Prime Minister and the Government.