PARLIAMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3661, 5 July 1927, Page 3

PARLIAMENT.

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY DEBATE.

Wellington, July 1.

■Mr. W. A. Voitch, Wanganui, continued the Address-in-Beply debate in the House on Friday. Mr. Veiteh said he believed the road to progress would not be found along the lines of a reduced standard of living', but of industrial peace and cheap money. It was the first dulty of the country to restore the financial position of primary producers. Steps should be taken to attract more capital to the land.

He also considered that there was a too rapid growth of State interference with business and industry in the country. There was no reason why, with a proper system of agricultural banking, farm industries should not be developed without the setting up of another big Stato institution. The State Advances Department bad done great good. But adding another State Department to it was going further than the needs of the case demanded. An Agricultural Bank with a reasonable guarantee would, Ire thought, attract more capital thau the Rural Credits branch. .

Mr. Veiteh accused the Government of mis-managing land settlement and public business generally and said that lie considered there had been gross extravagance in connection with public fuiids. The figures were gone into very extensively by Mr. Veiteh to prove his assertion, and he said that the total amount of capital moneys expended since 1912, was £103,000,000. The annual expenditure had risen from £10,000,000 to £27*000,000.

He believed that co-ordination in Public Departments would achieve economy without making it necessary to lower wages. The Minister of Lands,' Honorable A. D. McLeod, said that the Government had realized ever since the 1921 slump the necessity of financing the farmers, and had realized the necessity of putting the State guarantee behind rural financial assistance. It was impossible to get machinery moving to provide immediate assistance. In 1921, in Australia, they bad hardly touched] the fringe as compared to w r hat had been done through the State Advances Office InNew Zealand. Land development in this country should be carried out as far as possible with moneys lent by the State Advances Department. Mr. Sullivan: “If it is going to depend upon repayments by borrowers it is not going to be very considerable.” Mr. McLeod said lie was not going to be drawn into an argument.

“Why not full State guarantee on bonds 1 ?” suggested Mr. Sullivan. Mr. McLeod said that amounted practically to the same thing as Government lendings. State lending was bound up with the State valuation of land.

Proceeding', the Minister deprecated statements that settlers on Grown lands were walking off their farms. If Government valuation was to be made the basis of lending no lagrieultural bank or moitgage system would find enough money to pay off their indebtedness. Mr. McLeod said he had dug his heels deep in the ground to try to prevent deflation of land values. The only chance many settlers had was a gradual deflection of the value of the land they occupied. The people who had been going around talking about farmers going off the land had done more harm than the deflation itself. The number who have walked off was only 1.4G9.