STATE INSTITUTIONS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 90, 26 October 1928, Page 11

STATE INSTITUTIONS

MR. HOLLAND TO CRITICS "WHICH WOULD THEY ABOLISH?" Pronouncements made by his rival party leaders that they were opposed to socialisation were replied to last night by tho Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. H. E. Holland, in the course of his speech at the Town Hall. He asked them which of the existing State institutions they: proposed to curtail or abolish. ,In)his.-recent speech, at Auckland, said Mr. Holland, Sir Joseph Ward was reported as having said that the encroachment by the State on the field of private enterprise was detrimentally affecting all commercial progress, and causing a feeling of insecurity in the minds of those engaged in business; and, further, that tho United Party held that trading for profit in these enterprises was not a legitimate function of the State. This, said Mr. Holland, was wholly in conflict with Sir Joseph Ward's pronouncement made in his speech on tho Financial Statement on 30th September, 1919. On that occasion Sir Joseph showed how, by setting up a State bank, they could make £500,000 a year out of it, and how this profit from a State enterprise could be used to reduce taxation. In the same speech Sir Joseph had advocated the nationalisation of the coal mines, contending that, since the annual output of coal in New Zealand was over 2,000,----000 tons, the country would only re; quire to get 2s a ton out of it to reap' over £200,000 a year, and it would only be a matter of time before we would get £250,000 from these sources. This amount, Sir Joseph had proposed, should also be utilised to reduce taxation. Protesting1 that there were some people in New Zealand who thought that the Stato could not do anything satisfactorily, Sir Joseph Ward in 1919 declared that the State had run the Post Office, the Railways, the Government Insurances Offices, the Public Trust, and other Statp services and had done well in the interest of the community. Now he was leading what appeared to be a campaign in the opposite direction. Eeferring to Mr. Coates 's denunciations of socialisation, Mr. Holland said ho wanted to ask that gentleman to give a straight answer to the question of which of the socialised institutions of New Zealand ho proposed to abolish. If Mr. Coates was really serious in his fulmination against Socialism, it followed that he was antagonistic to the social services represented by tha Government Railways, the Post and Telegraph Department, the Education and Health Departments, the Public Trust, the State Advances, tho State coal mines, and other State undertakings. And since this was so the public were entitled to know in. what order Mr. Coates proposed to direct his attack against these services if he should succeed in getting back to office. "I venture to saj'," said Mr. Holland, "that none of the people of this country will stand for an attack on the establishment o£ State institutions.".