COMING ELECTION

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 32306, 30 August 1943, Page 5

COMING ELECTION

DEMOCRATIC LABOUR CANDIDATE FOR THAMES MR BALFOUR DAWSON’S VIEWS f A policy envisaging complete control of currency and credit which would enable advances to be made ar interest rates as low as li to 15 per cent, against production and thus further the interests of primary and secondary industries alike, was outlined by Mr Balfour Dawson, Thames candidate for the Democratic Labour Party, in a press interview recently. Mr Dawson emphasised that his party was quite distinct from the official Labour Party at present in power and believed implicitly in democratic government as opposed . to either bureaucracy or autocracy. His party was also 100 per cent, behind the war effort. Necessary Step “We believe it is necessary,” said Mr Dawson, “to take immediate control of credit and currency for without this no party can do anything in the way of carrying out a real policy. We believe New Zealand is immensely wealthy if its resources were used to the fullest extent.” Further expounding his monetary policy, Mr Dawson criticised the present orthodox finance methods which meant increasing debt. No country could keep pace with interest payments, let alone principal commitments, on war, or even domestic expenditure —and in our time we had had two wars. Britain, he said, was creating 5000 million pounds a year to finance her war economy and we could follow the method by creating credit against goods for production. No economist or politician had yet been able to tell us any other way we could overtake our debt commitments. A price tribunal would determine the best means of ensuring stability and credit would only be created to the extent of the country’s resources. 'Provision would be made for financing of soldiers and local 'bodies at the lowest possible rates and a stock and station agency would be developed within the structure of a State owned Bank of New Zealand, Mr Dawson stated. Encouraging Industry In describing how adequate provision would be made for returned service personnel, Mr Dawson said his party favoured the immediate appointment of a Minister of new industries and he would be backed by a finance corporation to assist manufacturers and all producers of consumer goods. Workers would foe transferred from unproductive to productive work. Housing would receive special attention and the party was' definitely pledged to slum clearance. Greatly extended housing construction would be undertaken and so would the repair and modernisation of many existing houses. Speaking generally on the control of production, the candidate suggested that workers and farmers should have equitable representation on boards of management appropriate to their.callings. Such representation should also be given on any marketing projects. Motherhood Endowment Equal pay for men and women for equal work was advocated as also was provision to assist all children, irrespective of their parents’ financial position, to secure training for any trade or profession. This implied fre.e education from kindergarten to university. A considerable point was made regarding the policy of motherhood endowment. There should be no means test to this and it should be available to all mothers conditional upon them drawing it themselves and not through their husbands. “While we do not believe in ‘carrying passengers,’ as the saying goes, we do believe that the Social SecurityAct should be made fully effective,” said Mr Dawson. “We don’t want able-bodied people to lie back on it, but we want its benefits made general so that all who participate in payments to it should be eligible for benefits.”

A farther point made was that pensioners should not be deprived of their allowances if they worked during the war period. If they were prepared to make the effort, to dock their pensions was a “fifth column act.” -Biographical Sketch

Mr Balfour Dawson is a New Zealander and a returned man from both great wars. Bom at Masterton, he was brought up on a sheep farm there but received his secondary education in England. He later studied farm ing methods in South America. Returning to New Zealand in 1920, he took up farming in the Wairarapa and afterwards was on the Coromandel' Peninsula for 12 years. He has been

a” field inspector and valuer with the Crown Lands Department, a director of the Masterton Dairy Company, chairman of the Coromandel County Council, County Highways Board’s representative, president Coromandel Returned Services Association, president Colville branch of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, and a Justiqg of the Peace for 11 years.