N.Z. FINANCIAL POLICY

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28266, 2 May 1957, Page 12

N.Z. FINANCIAL POLICY

Mr Watts Replies To Mr Walsh

(New Zea Land Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 1.

The president of the Federation of Labour (Mr F. P. Walsh) had let his imagination run away with him in comparing the actions of the Government with Social Credit theory, said the Minister of Finance (Mr J. T. Watts) today. Mr Walsh made the comparison in his speech at the annual conference of the federation in Wellington yesterday. “It is Mr Walsh, not the National Government, who has ideas akin to Social Credit,” said Mr Watts. “How, for example, would Mr Walsh finance a substantial works programme without overseas borrowing? His answer is, of course, import control, which is just where his philosophy clashes with mine. He would permit the public to have only those imports which the Labour Government would select “Here he is in company with Mr Young, the Social Credit spokesman at the Royal Commission on Monetary Affairs. The following extract from the report shows just how close they are: “ 'Mr Young was unable to point to any control in existence today which Social Credit could abolisn. In fact, his evidence showed that control by the State would be expanded consideraoly. Not only would we revert to a system of detailed import selection and exchange control, but we would also have comprehensive price regulation and a much stricter control of bank advances. . . .”* Mr Watts said that the manner in which the Labour policy worked out in practice had been well illustrated in 1938, when overseas reserves virtually disappeared and the country came into the iron grip of import and exchange controls. “What Mr Walsh cannot show,” concluded Mr Watts, “is that a Labour administration would do as, well as the present Government.”