ATTACK ON DIVIDEND KINGS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 144, 14 March 1939, Page 6

ATTACK ON DIVIDEND KINGS

e Minister’s Definition REPLY TO LEADER OF OPPOSITION By Telegraph —Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, March 13. •‘I notice that Mr. Hamilton has fired his gun at me again and again. He is firing with blank cartridges,”, said the Minister of Public Works, Mr. Semple,, in reply to remarks of the Leader ot the Opposition, Air. Hamilton, who in a statement from Wellington accused Mr. Semple of “working up agitation against an imaginary person called the dividend king.” “I wonder just who he is referring to when he talks about my attack on dividend kings,” said Mr. Semple. “I wonder if he is referring to my attack on the Southland Frozen Meat Company, which paid 38J per cent, in dividends and placed £40,000 to reserve and in the same year (during the depression) took- a subsidy from the employment funds, virtually out. of the penny boxes of the poor, for building at their Mataura works. Mr, Hamilton is personally familiar with this charitable act by the Southland Frozen Meat Company. Possibly he has not forgotten my exposure of his part in the business in Parliament and on the public platform.

“Possibility too, when he attacks me for my reference to dividend kings, he is thinking of the Waihi Gold Mining Company, which, having paid £9,000,000 in dividends, dodged payment of £40,000 income tax. It was not till Labour took office, made, the discovery and amended tbe law with retrospective action that we were able to get the company to make payment. Mr. Hamilton’s party bitterly opposed the Bill enforcing this payment. The attack on the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash, was led by the former Minister of Finance, Mr. Coates, and supported by tbe rest of Mr. Hamilton’s party in the House.

‘•lf this is the type of dividend king that Mr. Hamilton accuses me of attacking, I certainly plead guilty. I would not.be doing my duty by the public if I did not expose them, but I know that Mr. Hamilton has a soft spot in his heart for this type of man. I can only remind Mr. Hamilton that the public knows this and that the public will be the judge. “I should also remind the people that I took strong exception to Mr. Hamilton giving a sulbsidy to the Prudential Insurance Company for a new building in_Wellington at a time when the poor were starving. That is the type of dividend king I am going for.

“I have never said a word against a person getting a fair return for his money. I could not possibly class a man such as Lord Nuffield among the class of dividend kings. He is a millionaire, but he has handed his wealth back to the people and a nation with rich men of his type possesses a great asset. The men who grind out money from the poor and then try to dodge taxation, the type of man supported by Mr. Hamilton and his party, are the men I am referring to in my attack on dividend kings.”