The Dominion FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1944. AN UNSATISFACTORY POSITION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 228, 23 June 1944, Page 4

The Dominion FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1944. AN UNSATISFACTORY POSITION

On February 8 last the Minister of Finance arrived in London from Washington on a mission of exceptional importance to the Dominion. According to a broadcast address, one of Mr. Nash s duties was to take up with the British Government the disparities which existed between our import and export prices. “It was common knowledge,” he is reported to have said, “that New Zealand had been able to keep down the price of goods she sold to the United Kingdom to a considerably greater degree than the United Kingdom had kept down the prices of goods New Zealand bought from Britain. This meant a disparity was created in the values of the two countries mutual trading.” He added that he was negotiating for an adjustment that would be fair to both of them. Since then nothing has been heard about the negotiations. Mr. Nash returned to Washington in April and there has been silence about the outcome of his discussions with the British authorities. The Minister of Finance had expressed his intention to explain the position to the Prime Minister when they met in Washington, but if any matters had been left for the head of the Administration to finalize no information with regard to them has yet reached the people most directly concerned, the citizens of New Zealand. . Big issues are opened when it comes to adjustment of price disparities. The success which Mr. Nash claimed in keeping down the prices of the goods the Dominion exported was effected at the expense of those who produced them, and any adjustments must cover the same range of interests., There can be no question of the Government having any right to take for- its own purpose adjustment increases made necessary by its policy of keeping down prices to producers here. That would constitute action' along, purely sectional lines and not possess even a semblance of equity. Apart from the prolonged delay in either bringing the negotiations with the British authorities to a successful conclusion or in announcing the agreement reached, there is a growing feeling of dissatisfaction with the existing position. Both the Prime Minister and the colleague who, when he was here last year, was on occasion referred to as the Deputy-Prime Minister, are out of the country. Ihe mission of the head of the Government is known, but it is going on for three months since the pending return of the Finance Minister was announced, and presumably his duties as leader of the Dominion’s delegation to the International Monetary Conference will mean a further delay. During the past two or three years, in fact, the country’s Minister of Finance has been absent from the Dominion for a longer period than he has been in it, and this in spite of the tremendously increased responsibilities of the Finance portfolio under the strain of war conditions. One effect is to be seen in an overloaded Acting-Prime Minister burdened with the task of leadership of the Government, super-imposed on. the important portfolio 01 Minister of Supply and Munitions during a world war, and filling in addition the roles of Acting-Minister of Finance and Acting-Minister of External Affairs. At a time when the finances of the country demand the full-time attention of the ablest and most experienced member of the Government the position has been made a part-time side-line job for first one and then another Minister, as best suited the convenience of the Government at the moment. . . No other Dominion can duplicate that state of affairs, and it probably explains the widespread feeling that the Government has been simply marking time or drifting along allowing vitally important issues of financial policy, which urgently demand attention, to stand over indefinitely. Last year at this time the Budget had been presented, and early in July the war loan campaign had been brought to a successful conclusion, and the session ended on August 25. This year all has a leisurely atmosphere strangely out of place in a nation at war. Parliament will reassemble on July 26. There will be a Budget for the current year introduced when more than half of the year has gone, and estimates of expenditure will come forward for consideration when a substantial part of the votes has already been spent. It is an unsatisfactory position from all points of view.