VESTED INTERESTS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22507, 15 September 1938, Page 9

VESTED INTERESTS

TO TBB EDITOR OF THE gBESS. Sir, —The manner in which the Labour Party trades upon the ignorance of the people is simply disgraceful. The Labour Party has deliberately fostered the opinion that the National Party represents financial institutions and vested interests. Yet it was hot so long, ago that Mr Gordon Coates created the Reserve Bank and purchased the gold from the trading banks at the nominal price of £3 17s 10id instead of the market price of practically double that amount. Had he been in league with the banks he had an excellent case for paying the market price for gold. Neither the National Party nor any other party could win one seat if that party represented what the Labour propagandists would like people to believe. The “Standard” alleges that National Party funds come from big business. The truth is. as the “Standard” very well knows, that National Party funds are voluntarily contributed by scores of thousands of citizens who have a sense of responsibility for the future of this country, the majority of subscriptions being in half-crowns from people in all walks of life. Labour Party funds, which are very considerable, come from contributions from people who have to subscribe compulsorily through union fees, and very many through methods of intimidation.

The pity of it is that so many electors base their political thinking on the - mistaken idea that there is a wealthy half of the community who should support the other half, whereas the truth of the matter is' that the wealthv people in New Zealand are a negligible minority from the point of view of numbers and their total wealth is a very small amount compared with the aggregate wealth of the remainder. It is the rank and file of the people of New Zealand who in the long run have to pay in direct and indirect taxation. Subsidies on bread, butter, apples, honey—subsidies to social

schemes—a]l come out of the taxpayer’s pocket indirectly, and the bigger the man’s family the worse he is hit. At the present rate of progess the most powerful vested interest in New ZeSHand will soon be the army of professional politicians. State officials, and inspectors.—Yours, etc., NOTHING FOR NOTHING. September 14. 1938.