BUDGET DEBATE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23970, 10 June 1943, Page 4

BUDGET DEBATE

FIVE MEMBERS TAKE PART MINISTER DISCUSSES WOOL PRICE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 9. Five members of the House of Representatives spoke in the Budget debate to-day—the Hon. J. G. Barclay, Mr H. E. Combs, and Mr R. M. Macfarlane, from the Government benches, and Mr W. J. Poison and Mr F. W. Doidge for the Opposition. All but Mr Macfarlane took the full time, of an hour. The House adjourned at 9.45 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. to-morrow. Mr W. J. Poison (Opposition, Stratford) said it appeared that the Government was seeking to placate the farming class by stabilising some costs, but its action had come too late. Those costs should have been stabilised two or three years ago, before they had climbed too high. The Budget had mentioned the farmer in flattering terms, but there was nothing for him in the Budget, and the farmer could be regarded as a cynical illustration of Labour's aim to retain power at any cost. While the farmer was denying himself to assist the war effort, the Government was self-indulgently spending more than ever on other things than the war. Costs were rising everywhere, and as a result of higher living costs pensions had to be increased to let people live.

Land For Soldiers

“If I have any say in it, soldiers are not going to be put away in the backblocks to break in new land again,” said the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. J. G. Barclay), who followed Mr Poison, Our soldiers, he said, were going to get some of the best land at a fair price, and the Government would try to be fair to everyone. He contended that although the Opposition also \vanted to be generous to soldiers, they wanted to pay their friends, the big landholders, high prices for the land used by soldiers. They did not mind the State losing money. The Government did not mind the State sustaining some less, but it would not help the vendors of land to be rehabilitated instead of returned soldiers, as had been done in the case of the last war. Mr Barclay also defended the Internal Marketing Division which, he said, had saved £250,000 a year for the people of New Zealand in the cost of butter distribution alone. It had reduced the distribution costs from factory -to retailer from Id per lb to id per lb, and the remainder of the savihg had been effected by reducing the retailers’ profits. Retailers and distributors did not like the Internal Marketing Division, but it was the correct thing to try to short-circuit butter fro v the producer to the consumer, and Mr Barclay recalled that the price to the consumer had not risen since the outbreak of war. Referring to the wool position Mr Barclay after giving the history of the negotiations with the British Government, said wool producers had received more than £1,000,000 more than the price they had said would be fair; but they wanted to impose on New Zealand consumers a price which was 61 per cent. m,bre than they received in the year preceding the war. Woolgrowers who Isuffered hardship because of the retention of part of the purchase money for wool were able to lodge appeals, and only 540 had done so. and the Government was paying them all in cash. TTiree-quar-ters of the appeals already had been allowed. Raising Money In Russia Mr F. W. Doidge (Opposition, Tauranga) said that in spite of Ministerial claims to the contrary, the Budget showed that we still owed Britain many millions of money. He also compared the methods used in raising money in other countries with those adopted by the present administration. F6r instance, he said, when Mr Stalin went to the Russian people with a war loan he paid them 4 per cent, interest. “The best we could get out of this miserable Government is 2J per cent,” he added. (Laughter.) Some years ago, he said, Mr Stalin had foreseen the Nazi menace, and had abandoned Communism for a modified capitalist system. To-day there was ample proof of the profit-making motive in every form of activity in Russja, and Mr Doidge suggested that the time was shortly coming when the New Zealand Government should send a delegation to Russia to study the capitalist system there. Mr Doidge advocated the inauguration of a priority purchase certificate scheme to allow people *to purchase* certificates, week by week, against the delivery of goods after the war.