NO DOUBT ABOUT IT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 12

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT

Banks and bankers again came under the whip, of the Labour candidate for Wellington South (Mr. McKeen) when he addressed a meeting at Berhampore last evening, and once again the true meaning of the Government's credit and currency policy was revealed. Unlike the Prime Minister and some other Ministers of the Crown, Mr. McKeen is not greatly concerned about the taste of the Socialist medicine he asks the people to swallow and he makes no secret of the prescription. At a time when the people are being asked to decide the path which New Zealand is to follow for the next three years, such candour is welcome. It paves the way for a straight answer on a straight issue. Mr. MpKeen said enough last evening to indicate in the plainest possible manner that Labour intends to carry out to the letter everything that its credit and currency policy implies and everything that is implied in the writings of Mr. J. A. Lee. When the Government took over the Keserve Bank it paid the shareholders the market value of their shares at that particular time, said Mr, McKeen, and we are going to extend operations to control some of the other banks, too. We are going to control the credit and currency of this country. Such a statement is capable of only one interpretation. If Labour is returned to office the private banks (arid presumably all other financial institutions) will be brought under! State domination. But Mr, McKeen was not content to leave it at that. Two-thirds of the shares of the Bank of New Zealand are owned and controlled by the New Zealand Govern-j ment, he said. Why cannot we do in this instance what we did with the Reserve Bank? When the Government decided to buy out the shareholders of the Reserve Bank we simply paid out a cheque to each of the shareholders to a total extent of £500,000, plus the' premium on the shares at that date, and that is what is likely to occur to the Bank of New Zealand. In this statement there stands revealed riot only Labour's intentions, but the methods which Labour will adopt to give effect to its intentions. As a responsible member of the Labour Party, Mr. McKeen has disclosed in a manner that permits of no misunderstanding the plan which his parly will follow if it is returned to the Treasury benches. Thanks to him, the public will not be voting blindly on one of the major issues! before the country.