ATTACK & DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 April 1938, Page 7

ATTACK & DEFENCE

PRIME MINISTER REPLIES TO CRITICISM

IN ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN AUSTRALA COMMENTS ON LABOUR POLICY CONTRADICTED WELLINGTON, April 8. A copy of a letter sent by the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon M. J. Savage, to the “Sydney Morning Herald” in reply to articles by New Zealand correspondents criticising the policy of the Government has been released for publication. The letter reads as follows:—

“On several occasions my attention has been drawn to news articles in the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ from writers in New Zealand. Political criticism is to be expected and at times even welcomed, but when critics stray from the truth with the idea of maligning a Government out of its own country in a newspaper with a reputation abroad for impartiality and accuracy, it becomes necessary to put things straight. “In your issue of March 11 a fulmination of New Zealand politics and alleged economic effects of the Labour Government’s policy is given prominence. May I, as Prime Minister, seek a similar privilege to contradict a series of mischievous statements and give Australian readers of your journal a chance to see what is actually being done in New Zealand? ASSERTIONS DENIED.

“The New Zealand correspondent made many loose assertions concerning the results of the Government’s policy in relation to the interests of farmers. All were inaccurate except two, and there were factual only in emphasising the devastating tactics of the former Coalition Government during the depression years and the electoral punishment inflicted upon it in 1935.

“It is not necessary to repeat the partisan nonsense of the correspondent in detail. My answer, giving facts only, will indicate the misleading character of the political indictment. “For instance, it is not true that the Government’s policy of guaranteed prices for dairy products ‘has caused widespread dissatisfaction which has ripened into general hostility.’ Proof to the contrary is to be found on all sides. Instead of 50 per cent of 80,000 dairy-farmers being insolvent as they were found to be by a Royal Commission during the depression, the majority are now enjoying prosperity, with economic security. FARMERS’ INCOMES “Two years ago the average income of small farmers with valuations under £3OOO was £2 a week. Today the weekly average is £5 15s after paying rent, interest and working expenses. These figures are not guesswork; they have been given by the farmers themselves in their returns of income for unemployment purposes. “Your correspondent predicted inflation as a result of the guaranteed prices because ‘the Government faced a deficit in the first year of trading.’ Is a deficit of £338,000 out of a national income of £200,000,000 likely to cause inflation?

“It has also been stated that ‘indignation knew no bounds when the working week was reduced to 40 hours contemporaneously with the restoration of wages.’ Rubbish! The ‘bounds of indignation’ were confined entirely to the class of employer who would like to have no boundaries to working hours at all. “And the cost of living has not soared as a result of these beneficial reforms. The cost of living is actually still lower than in 1929—the boom year. COMPULSORY ARBITRATION “The correspondent’s statement that the restoration of compulsory arbitration gave the farmer further cause for disagreement with the Government in that wages for farm hands were raised and their working hours were limited to a 40-hour week is sheer nonsense. Increased wages for farm hands were fixed in an agreement between the New Zealand Farmers’ Union and the Government. There is no 40-hour week for farm workers. “If it be true that ‘public works have attracted the down-trodden relief workers,' the reason is plain. Under the previous Government public works controlled by the department were carried out during the depression with relief labour. Married men were paid 12s a day and single men 9s, but did not average these rates. In the single men’s camp wages were fixed at 17s 6d a week and found or at £1 7s 6d a week without found. Maori workers were paid less than Europeans. Camp conditions were crude. Under the present Government the average wage of public works employees is close on £1 a day. And they are working for it. The standard of efficiency is high and the cost of work is relatively low, as a result of organisation and the use of modern machinery. The savings have been enormous. PUBLIC WORKS POLICY “The Public Works Department has not budgeted' this year for £13,000,000. ‘this colossal sum to be found per medium of taxation.’ No secret has been made of the fact that the department's budget this year estimated an expenditure of £17,000,000. The Minister of Finance has explained and published the source of funds for public works. ‘After allowing for the revenues accruing to the main highways, electric supply, and othei’ accounts, it is estimated that balances carried forward on April 1, 1937, together with amounts received from the Post Office Savings Bank and other departmental services, will be sufficient to provide all that is required for this programme.’ Your correspondent should have read the budget statement or his own newspaper instead of sending distorted news to a trusting journal in Sydney. “It is also untrue to say that unemployment has not been reduced as promised by the Government in 1935.

There were 75,000 unemployed on the register in 1932. In December, 1935, when the Labour Government took office, there were 57,246 men registered as unemployed. Today there are fewer than 10,000. More people are employed today than at any time in New Zealand’s history. There are 8000 men unfit for any kind of work who are receiving sustenance rates on an adequate scale. We do not believe in the callous doctrine that hunger is the best promoter of employment. THE SALES TAX “The sales tax is not 8d in the £, as emphatically stated by your erratic correspondent; it is 1/- in the £, which was the rate fixed as a so-called ‘wise measure’ by the previous Government. It does not apply to the necessaries of life or to farmers’ occupational requirements. The record revenue from sales tax is due to increased prosperity, and it goes to improve social services. “One could go on exposing with the light of facts the deliberate misstatements by your correspondent, but there is a limit even to the cuffing of fools. “The Government stands by its achievements and will extend them. There is abundant evidence that the majority of the people are satisfied. Impoverishment has disappeared; children are now well fed and clad; young people have opportunities to make useful careers; invalids are receiving pensions as a humane right; the old folk have no fear of disgraceful poverty. Dissatisfaction is rife only among those who hate to see other people enjoying real prosperity. EDITORIAL FOOTNOTE CONTRIBUTOR SUPPORTED. UNEMPLOYMENT AND LIVING COSTS. ' SYDNEY, April 7. The editor of the “Sydney Morning Herald,” in a footnote to Mr Savage’s letter, says: “The article to which Mr Savage takes exception was contributed to the “Herald” by a well-informed New Zealand correspondent. The fact that his view of the economic situation in,.New Zealand and of the public reaction therefore differs from that of Mr Savage does not mean that it is either biased or inaccurate.” The editor says: “Mr Savage denies that the cost of living in New Zealand has soared as the result of his Government’s ‘beneficial reforms,’ and he quotes the cost of living in 1929 to prove his case. The Savage Government came into power in December, 1935. In that year the official cost of living index stood at 837 In 1936 it rose to 864, and, by the end of 1937, it had mounted to 945.

“Similarly, when Mr Savage quotes figures to prove that unemployment in New Zealand has been reduced from an official total of 57,246 in December, 1935, to an official total of less than 10,000 today, he refrains from mentioning that the whole basis upon which these totals were compiled has been changed, that men in full-time subsidised employment, who have been steadily increasing in numbers recently, have been omitted from the unemployment return and that a further 8000 unemployed have been classified as unemployables, and also omitted. “It is significant, moreover that in two instances in which Mr Savage corrects our correspondent's figures his corrections serve only to strengthen the case which the figures were quoted to support. “While the ‘Herald’ willingly affords Mi - Savage the opportunity to express in its columns the claims of his Government, it is hardly likely that his closing assertion that ‘dissatisfaction is rife only among those who hate to see other people enjoying prosperity’ will carry conviction.”