POLITICIAN'S INEXACTITUDES

Chronicle (Levin), 31 May 1946, Page 4

POLITICIAN'S INEXACTITUDES

"HONESTY IN POLITICS."

Sir— Mr, J. Thorn, M.P., who spoke in Levin on Tuesday evening, was guilty of at least three misstatements. He prpfessed first -to contradict and make fun of Mr. R. M Algie's contention that slumps could >be due to climatie conditions. Will the people in the Waikato not experience a slump this winter with £2,000,000 less to be spent in the area owing to the •vagaries of the weather? Did not the people of Australia experience a slump when drought conditions made sheep unsaleable at less tfran ls a head? Magnify these to a catastrophic world condition and Mr. Thorn would then see that a world slump could be caused by climate. This would be no laughing matter. Mr. Thorn was also most careful, when blaming the ForbesCoates Government for the state of affairs in New Zealand, not to mention that the cuts and relief payments in the Labour-ruled States of Australia were much more drastic. A further mis-statement by the speaker was that all the privately built houses in Levin had been financed by the State Advances Corporation, so that, as he said, all the houses erected in the past ten years had really been built by the Government. The majority of the owners' dwellings were not financed by the S.A.C., as I could prove to ■ Mr. Thorn. The third mis-statement was that whereas in 1936 the dairy farmers were getting 9-id per 1b. of butterfat, they were now receiving ls 8d. He agreed with a questioner that the New Zealand £ was pow only worth'lOs in purchasing power compared with 1936; therefore, the actual sum received for butterfat was only lOd, that is, i-d more than in 1936, and not nearly double as he would have had his listeners believe. Yours etc.,

I.evin, May 26.