FORECAST & FACT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1939, Page 8

FORECAST & FACT

DOMINION’S ECONOMIC POSITION

OPPOSITION LEADER'S SURVEY. GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND AFTERMATH. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “To make it obvious to every man and woman in New Zealand that the Dominion conference of importers was not simply a political manoeuvre aimed at discrediting the Labour Government, the National Party has deliberately withheld its comment on the restrictions recently imposed,” said the Hon A. Hamilton, Leader of the Opposition, in a statement last evening. "Now that the business community has stated its case, and now that a considerable answer has been given by the Government, no case can be prejudiced by some plain speaking by me “There is no pleasure in seeing a prophecy of disaster fulfilled, but it is my duty as Leader of the Opposition to state bluntly that the present financial crisis, coming as it does with remarkable swiftness after three years of the greatest prosperity, was forecast by the National Party ever since the Government tool: office in 1935. It is no easy task to persuade people enjoying temporary benefits that trouble lies ahead, but that task I have never shirked, nor has it been shirked by any member of my party. Now all thinking people must be alarmed at the Government’s desperate expedient, disguised as policy, which it hopes will extricate itself from its self-made difficulties.”

RESERVES DEPLETED. Mr Hamilton said the one reason why the Government had been able to stave off the day of reckoning so long -was because of the legacy left by the National Party —over £40,000,000 of sterling funds in London, and the various Government departments in credit. Those savings had dwindled to a mere nothing, and the credits had been dissipated and squandered. The Reserve Bank had been drawn upon to such an extent that the danger signal had been hoisted. The crisis was upon them, and it must develop inevitably. To add to the tension, Labour policy had intensified’ the crisis by strangling production; even export income was falling. The drastic steps the Government was taking today were to deal with effects and not causes. To remedy the effects, there must be a reversal of the present Socialist policy. To restore confidence, business must thrive and employment 'must be productive. Already men and women had been thrown out of employment. If the Government continued on its course, more and more would be forced out. Those still in work would have to pay more to keep those who were unemployed. The bubble was then burst, and the standard of living forced down. WAR THAT SHOULD END. “To reverse this movement the war between capital and labour nurtured by the Labour Government must end,” said Mr Hamilton. “The employee must realise that his interests are irrevocably bound up with those of his employer and vice versa. Every facility must be given to capital both inside and outside New Zealand. With-

out absolute co-operation on sound lines, there can be no founding of new industries or expansion of those of today. There has been no sudden emergency today. The Labour crop of spendthrift extravagance, sown successively for three seasons, is being harvested.

“The National Party always attacked the Socialist policy proclaimed by the Government as ‘spending its way to prosperity—onward and upward’ The Government would not listen. It scoffed. The majority of the people would not listen. The prophecy is fulfilled and the Government seeks to save its life by desperate expedients and the people are suffering already. They will suffer more. In three years of exceptional prosperity, this Government has run through all the available funds in New Zealand and more, and so depleted the London funds that the Government itself has to declare a state of emergency. “I cannot believe that this crisis was not foreseen by the Government, and I am certain that the people of New Zealand will not be ready to forgive a Government who, but a few months ago, explicitly denied that there was any possibility of such a state of emergenecy being at hand. The price of success at the election unquestionably impaired political integrity. The people will pay. THE GOVERNMENT'S CLAIMS. “For years the Government has not been frank with the electors. It has claimed that It could suspend or modify accepted economic laws. Today they are in much the same position as King Canute and the tide, except that the ancient King announced before he faced the ocean that he held no mystic power to prevent the inevitable. The Government has spent till the larder is bare, and today the Government is instituting an emergency policy of scraping and saving to repair the position, just as any private citizen would have to do who faced a similar emergency. It is distressing to think, however, -that the crisis is deliberately created. “The Government has attempted to give reasons for the crisis in an attempt to shelve part of the blame at least if possible. New Zealand cannot be content to see the falling export returns and everyone must know that, apart from lower prices, the principal reasons for the decline of productive farm labour. The Government itself has contributed to the crisis by its huge expenditure on public works which has assisted to swell the total amount of imports. “It is high time the people of New Zealand thought in terms of prevention rather than quick remedies in politics, as well as in many other aspects of living. Rising costs must be reduced. The thousands of men employed today on unproductive works must' be absorbed into productive industry. No import restrictions will increase the exports, nor will this Government find a way to pay their legions of employees without resorting to inflation and that is the preface to major catastrophe in which all sections of the community must be engulfed.”

WORKERS DISPLACED. Mr Hamilton said men and women were now being thrown out of employment. Their anxiety, their personal problems were not satisfied by talk in so-called economic theory that they may, at some future date, be reabsorbed in some industry, they having already devoted most of their life to building up a trade or a business in another vocation. “This Labour Government that has proclaimed its practiacl virtues is actually no better than we originally alleged,” added Mr Hamilton “It is a Government based on Socialists theories and ideals in which practicability plays no fundamental part. The results must be bitter fruit to the man and woman in the street. “This control of imports and exchange is the first effort to stem the tide of cause and effect, but there must be more and more expedients of an qually unpleasant nature to follow. London funds may be temporarily strengthened, but at what cost to the standard of living of the bulk of our people? As costs is not a word that greatly concerns the Labour Government, litle sympathy can be expected The National Party still calls for sane thought and is still very much in the fight for sound government and freedom for all.”