"SPEND FREELY"

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 125, 23 November 1932, Page 6

"SPEND FREELY"

A lengthy reply is made by "M.G-." to the statement quoted from the "New Zealand Draper." "There are thousands of people in the Dominion ■ who could spend freely if they were so disposed." "We could all spend freely (writes "M.G."), if we had the tokens of exchange, but these have been taken from us by the cry of 'Wolf, wolf!' and the resultant beggai--my-neighbour policy of this present Government, which has blindly followed the lead of other equally futile Governments in -Australia, Canada, U.S.A., etc. How can the women of the Dominion spend freely when their husbands, their brothers and their sons are thrown out of employment? . . .

England has sounded a new note in defence of her farmers who, for forty years have suffered from overseas dumping by her sons whom she sent to the Colonies. My own father was a well-known farmer in the North of England for fifty years on one of the best farms, but he, together with the majority, was.ruined at last. New Zealand sent lamb and ruined his market for sheep, and wool also. The Argentine shipped beef and undersold his own prime stock, Denmark dumped eggs, butter, and poultry, and stopped any enterprise in that direction. He was left to sell milk as the only means of making money, and competition reduced the price of milk to eightpence a gallon. / Now England is warning her sons overseas that at long last they should stand on their own feet and develop an internal market By increasing their population. The slogan should be 'A home market for New Zeala_nd produce.' I would like to see some indication of a powerful spirit of self-reliance instead of the weak one of leaning,on Great Britain for every dose of prosperity. • New Zealand grew rich and prosperous while English agriculturalists languished and now she must set her house in order and make a new system of currency and a new era of inner development."