depression, the whole policy was recast. In the process the basic platform which, amended and extended, had served from 1916 was lost from view. The revised policy was concerned more directly with the problems created by the depression. Stimulated by the national preoccupation with monetary matters which overtook New Zealand in these years, it stressed the importance of financial reform and especially the role in recovery which should be played by public credit. The 1935 Election Labour interpreted the "slump" as less a crisis of overproduction than of underconsumption, a phenomenon which it attributed to a breakdown in the system of distribution and exchange. The party conceded that the collapse of export prices overseas was the principal cause of New Zealand's predicament, but contended that the policy of the Coalition Government had seriously and unnecessarily aggravated the situation. The remedy it proposed was to plan and direct the exchange and distributive sectors of the economy. Capitalist production was unchallenged in this policy; not social ownership but social control was its hallmark. Labour faced the 1935 election with confidence. With one exception the party had registered a steady accretion of parliamentary strength: eight seats in 1919, 17 in 1922, 12 in 1925, 19 in 1928, 24 in 1931. And with the coalition of Reform and the Liberals in 1931, Labour now was plainly the alternative government. Moreover, the Labour Party had introduced to New Zealand politics a novel degree of local organisation, centrally controlled. An efficient central office and research bureau