“PLAIN BUNK”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1938, Page 8

“PLAIN BUNK”

MR SAVAGE ON SAVING STATEMENT IN LABOUR PAPER DENIED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON,' This Day. “I wonder why the Prime Minister in his speech this afternoon did not take the opportunity to tell us something about this wonderful idea of insulation," said Mr W. J. Polson (Opposition. Stratford), during the debate on the Imprest Supply Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday. "We know, of course, that New Zealand can’t be insulated. The Minister of Finance had admitted it. He told a gathering in London when he was asked about the possibility of migration, that they could not bring more people into New Zealand because they could not say how long the boom would last. A member: "Who said that?" Mr Polson: 'The chief insulator —the Minister of Finance." Continuing, Mr Polson said that the Prime Minister had told the electors of Stratford that he was not going to socialise the farms. He did not tell them, however, how. he could avoid socialising the land in view of the party's objective. How was the Government going to bring about Socialism and leave the farmers alone? The Prime Minister had indicated that he was going to abolish private savings.” Mr Savage: "I never said that in my life.” Mr Polson: “Here is a statement in your own paper, the ‘Standard.’ It is headed: “Labour’s Financial Policy. Mr Savage Indicates Private Saving Eventually to Cease.’ The statement itself reads: ‘This scratching, scraping, starvation system of individual saving strangles the economic freedom and well-being of the nation. We have got to stop that. . . Mr Savage: “Plain bunk, that’s all.” Mr Polson: “I accept the Prime Minister’s assurance that it is bunk. It is like a good deal of other stuff from Ministers which appears in this precious paper. The Prime Minister in this bunk statement goes on: “We mus. save as a nation, and our saving will take the form of universal superannuation and national health insurance.’ Mr Savage said he was not going to interfere with the freehold. The Minister of Lands was much more frank. He said the farmer who worked the land had no more right to the freehold than the man who worked in a factory had to the ownership of the factory.