“A Millennium of Miik-and-Honey”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 May 1927, Page 16

“A Millennium of Miik-and-Honey”

LABOUR ASSAILS REFORM MR. LEE IN THE ENEMY’S CAMP JAISSATIS FACTION with Coates and Confidence is increasing to such an extent that + he Ministry has been galvanised into an eleventh-hour effort to stay the rot. The country has been promised a milk and honey millenium in return for a Coates majority, but political salvation seems further off than ever and the speeches of Ministers give no promise of change for the better. —Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P.

YJUCH was the spirit of an attack upon the Government’s policy by the Labour member for Auckland East at Dargaville last evening, in reply to the speech delivered earlier in the week by the Prime Minister. Mr. Coates had said that dear money was not the Government’s fault, declared Mr. Lee, but the public would remember that one of the first administrative acts of the Prime Minister was to increase interest rates for State Advances loans from 4£ per cent, to 52 per cent., although the cost to the department for the money was only £4 2s per cent. Moreover, Mr. Coates had said he was prepared to amend the Rural Credits Eiill of last year which only operated from April 1 this year, to provide cheap money. But surely this was evidence that the Bill passed last year had merely shelved the problem. Mr. Coates had had little to say

about the rise in the bank rate. He had not mentioned than the Government had a majority on the directorate of the Bank of New Zealand Board, but had permitted the Governmentcontrolled institution to become part of a private combme. The banks increased their rate at the peak overdraft period, and had their fattest times when tile community was in difficulties. If there had been over-im-portation the banks should have checked advances for that purpose and by using all available credit for local industrial expansion the banks could have helped New Zealand to get away from the present depression and at the same time have given an impetus to local industry. Mortgage rates were bound to follow ihe upward trend of the bank rate. The country had saved the Bank of New Zealand. The Government should see that its controlling interest was used to compel the bank to serve industry, and New Zealand industry.

THE FRUITS OF HIS POLICY Mr. Coates had declaimed against Mr. Holland for showing the huge reduction in the amount of labour employed on the land during the last few years. Why? Surely Mr. Coates had to be judged according to the fruits of his own policy.

Mr y Coates had said there was no land aggregation, biit the figures in acres as well as cash values proved to to the contrary. The huge advertisements of the Government, nad prom ised land settlement. The Government •purchases for settlement were £ 1.400 in 1926, £2,695 in 1926, £ 60,000 in 1927. and for the last purchase uad nothing to show except the expenditure. The Prime Minister’s silence about the area at Gisborne was significant. As showing that the Government knew there was land to be cut up, Mr. Lee quoted Reform • election adve-tise-ments promising to use penal taxation to make land available at a reasonable rate.

Mr. Coates had condemned pessimistic talk. New Zealand’s ohjef pessimist had been the Hon. Mr McLeod, who had been touring from banquet to banquet delivering himself of an agonising jerimiad on the need for goslow in land settlement. Tl. is Doleful Johnny in charge of wliat should be a progressive. department, wailed as the McLeod of comic papers would wail if he lost sixpence down a st-vver.

The Prime Minister had promised tj clear himself in regard to his interference with the policy of the Dairy Board, but he still had much to answer for. He denied -hat the cablegrams from London had been sent to the board with his approval, although he admitted it had been sent with his cognisance. He did not state why his chairman of the board, then in Lon • don, was not consulted before the cable was sent. The least the Prime Minister could have done was to have supported the policy of the board, which was the policy of farmers by a majority of over 13,000 votes. FARCICAL TINKERING The Prime Minister refused to plead guilty to the offence of opposing the board, but was obviously at least an accessory after the fact. The secretary of the Farmers’ Union had stated that the Prime Minister had promised in caucus to sabotage the Act after it was passed. So far this charge had been met in silence. And what was the present policy of the Prime Minister? His solution was worthy of the great man he was. Change the name of the board, he advised. When a politician was found out he changed his name from Tory to Conservative, to Reform to “The Man who Gets Things Done.” But the board was an honest effort to better the producer, and only the person who had much to hide needed an alias.

If the board was good, it was good; if bad. it was bad, and any tinkering with the name was farcical. After charging opponents with light-headed-ness the serious contribution of this much-advertised statesman was to hold a rechristening ceremony: ‘After the deluge comes the font!” It was too funny for words. The speaker’s advice to his audience was not to change the name but to change their “Coates.” PILING UP REVENUE Mr. Coates had stressed the need for increased revenue for road mainten-. ance. It seemd to the speaker that what was needed was increased expenditure. In the North Island the Main Highways Board at the beginning of April had only spent £519,000 out of £941,000 received. With unemployment rampant and roads bad and nearly half a million pounds in hand, what was required was administrative efficiency. There was not much good in piling up revenue if it was eventually to be raided by another depart-

ment. With unemployment abounding it was little short of criminal to leave this unexpended balance idle. When would “the man who gets things done” do things? Mr. Lee also dealt with the reduced wages paid to relief workers, some of whom were sacked from one department at full rates and employed by the same department at relief rates. Relief works were the fruits of lack policy. Coming to the tariff, Mr. Lee said the hanks could assist local industry by giving preference to local over importing firms. They could exercise wise discretion without recourse to exorbitant rates. He opposed revenue tariffs. The Hon. Downie Stewart had said in the House last session that to impose too heavy a tariff would compel outsiders to transfer them plants to New Zealand, where they would be a bigger menace to local manufacturers. This fallacious reasoning suggested that Parliament was only concerned about the profits of existing manufacturers. Either an article should be free or the tariff should be heavy enough to force the local production of croods. Mr. Lee condemned the Singapore proposals of the Government, and then concluded his address.