GOVERNMENT AIMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1939, Page 4

GOVERNMENT AIMS

IN POLICY OF IMPORT REGULATION

STATEMENT BY PREMIER. TRADE & LOCAL INDUSTRY. <By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. The statement that as far as it was possible to correct any anomalies that might exist the Government would do its best to put things right,’ was made by the Prime Minister. Mr Savage, when commenting, in an interview yesterday, on the reactions of traders to the import licensing regulations. "They are entitled to make complaints and also to make representations to the Government.” Mr Savage said. “But one thing must be insisted upon—the Government must carry out its policy of protecting New Zealand industry.” The Prime Minister said the Government was wise enough to know that over a substantial period the country could not export without importing, but there did not appear to him to be anything extraordinary in conscious and common-sense regulation. "What we are trying to do by control other people tried to do by tariffs,” he said. “When this thing was first instituted by this Government we said then that the policy would never be altered, though the methods may be from time to time.

“Our policy is to build in New Zealand. We cannot build anywhere else. And while we are expanding secondary production we are also expandingprimary production. That means we hope to export more overseas, and that in turn means that we will import more from overseas, and we will do our side of that. We want to expand trade, and we- want the people of this country to help us. “All this only goes to show that control of external trade does not mean that we are going to have less of it. After all, the action that the Government has taken today is in the direction of expanding trade at home and abroad. The importer will still have his job to do.” ' Some people, Mr Savage said, had blamed high wages. That might be an old chestnut, but it was worth cracking again. There was no other way of expanding trade than by expanding the purchasing power of the people. The people who were advocating a curtailment of public expenditure were asking for the repetition of what happened from 1931 to 1935, and they were not going to get that because it meant destroying New Zealand trade.