MONEY & SAVINGS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 March 1939, Page 9

MONEY & SAVINGS

MR HAMILTON CRITICISES PRIME MINISTER REPLY TO PLAIN QUESTION WANTED. AN ALLEGED THREAT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) HASTINGS, March 7. “I asked Mr Savage a plain question as to what were the details of his announced complete change of the money system,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hamilton, in Hastings tonight when Mr Savage’s comment on his speech in Palmerston North last night was referred to him. “His reply today in no particular answered that question, and it stands as a firstclass sample of deliberate evasion and the planned confusion of the public mind to which I took exception. “The man in the street today is as much in the dark about this threat to the present money system as I am,” said Mr Hamilton. “Mr Savage asks is it too much to expect my support? My support for what? If Mr Savage has evolved a mechanism which will entirely change the money system, then why does he avoid placing the facts plainly before us all? If he has found a touchstone of perpetual prosperity based on money manipulation, why is he so secretive about it? “As I pointed out earlier, today Mr Savage has effected a very substantial indirect cut on the incomes of people with savings and yet he now proposes to persuade them after threatening them that he has plans for the use of their money. There is grim humour about that.

“Mr Savage was precise about his attitude to savings when on October 31, 1936, he said: ‘This scratching, scraping starvation system of individual savings strangles the economic freedom and well-being of a nation. We have got to stop that.’ Now the scratchers and scrapers are going to be used for Mr Savage’s unannounced ends. “We have today a picture of the Prime Minister openly telling the country that he is changing the whole money system and then turning round when asked for simple details in simple language to become negatively' abusive. Can he wonder that he himself is playing such a prominent part in damaging New Zealand’s credit and good name?” asked Mr Hamilton. “The circumstances suggest that even immediately after his own boastfulness of his election at the polls he is afraid to be straightforward in announcing the details I properly sought. To give facts would be positive .action, but it is reasonable to assume that Mr Savage’s own negative attitude of suppression must be trying and bewildering even to his supporters.”