IF REVENUE FELL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 25, 22 October 1937, Page 4

IF REVENUE FELL

Membera of the Government are always ready to attack the policy followed by the Coalition during the depresssion years, but when they are asked to expiain what they would do in similar circumstances they are uncertain and evasive. Tho Prime Minister, for instance, in the courso the second rcading debate on the Annual Taxing Bill in the House of Representatives, said that the "big bad wolf'" of depression wa3 "not going to turn up, that's all''; and he added the characteristically vague comment that "as long as the people of Now Zealand are capablo of >producing' things we shall see that they are able to enjoy them and we are not going to be harnessed to the chariot wheels of other nationa.'' The Minister of Finance (the Hon. Walter Nash) was more temperate in his remarks and more explicit, but not much more sensible. If a fall in prices took place which automatically affected the income of the country, he said ,the Government would insulate it ' 'as far as possible"; and the Government would at the aame time set about "maintaining the production of everything necessary for an adequate standard of living. The suggestion that this country of one and a-half million people could at the first onset of depression achieve anything approaching economis self-sufficiency is as absurd as the idea that her dependence on Britain's markets and defence would make such a policy anything but suicidal. The first way in which we can "insulate" ourselves against years of depression is to conserve our resources in years of prosperity— by building up reserves in the State treasury (the reserves available in 1931 and 1932 were meagre enough, but how valuable thoy were) and by allowing industry to develop and consolidate itself. The Labour Government i3 taking neither of these precautions. By heavy taxatipn and excessive restrictions it is retarding what should be a period of abnormal growth in industry; and far from conserving the national resources it is spending recklessly and drawing upon the limit of departmental reserves. It follows this course in the confident belief that it can mcceed in defeating depression where every other government in the world hhs failed. and tho fact that ifcs leaders cannot expiain how, apparently does nothing to shake its incre.dible eel£-afiBuranc% ,