Mr Jones at Methven.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20108, 11 December 1930, Page 10

Mr Jones at Methven.

It says a good deal for Methven, as well as for its Representative in ParlisU inent, that two hundred people should v haye turned out on Tuesday night to hear a purely political address. Although Mr Jones has become one of the best speakers in Parliament, the average person is interested in little at present but his debts and prospects, and Mr Jones had not announced that he would deal with one or the other. In spite of this he had a full house, and if he hit the Government harder than some people will think was seemly during a national crisis, his blows were fair. They were also called for in the sense that they were necessary as well as provoked. Since the United Party has been in office all, or nearly all, of the forces pulling the farmer down have been made to pull more strongly. It has not actually turned its back on the farmer, or told him in plain words to siuk or swim. It has not had the courage to do that. It has said'pleasant things to him and at the same time aided and abetted everybody who has shown a desire to exploit him. We cannot, therefore, afford to be squeamish now that the whole community is suffering from a calar ity which the Government, though it could not have warded it off, has so greatly intensified. ' If the United Party has encouraged extravagance and then met this by increased taxation; if it has promised money at 4| per cent, and had to borrow it at 6s; if it has tempted men away from productive labour to unproductive, and then had to pass the Dominion's worst Act in order to compel the 'public to pay, sympathy for it now that its follies have overtaken it is too costly an emotion to indulge freely. Mr Jones was entitled to point out that the Government had been given its chance. The Treasury warned the Prime Minister when he was first appointed that a drastic curtailment of expenditure was the only method of warding off disaster. The Prime Minister accepted the warning and passed it on, and could easily then, if his courage had not failed him, have brought the Reform and United Parties together. He chose ■ instead to surrender to Labour, so that our expenses, in relation to the prices the world will pay for our produce, make a load that we can no longer carry. It is unpleasant to say these things now that the calamity is actually upon us", and if not saying then would help any\body 2 silence would be a national duty.

But there has been too much silence, and far too much meekness and patience. The facts must be faced, and to the extent to which the Government is responsible for them, it must be exposed and blamed. Mr Jones could have said far sharper things than he actually did say if his purpose had been morcly destructive. He must he praised for saying so much that no one can afford to forget, whatever his party allegiance has been in the past.