BURDENS ON FARMERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1939, Page 4

BURDENS ON FARMERS

MEMBER FOR AWARUA PREDICTS REVOLT. CRITICISM OF MR SEMPLE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “I don’t suppose that in the history of this country the farming community has been dealt a meaner blow than has been dealt it in this Budget,” declared Mr J. Hargest (Opposition, Awarua), when speaking in the debate on the Financial Statement in the House of Representatives yesterday. The farmers would not go on standing for that, Mr Hargest said. They would revolt against the impositions placed upon them by this rapacious Government. Why should they not revolt against it. They would revolt in some way, actively or passively, against a system that was going to crush them. If they sat down as they had done in the past, what future had they? The Acting-Prime Minister, Mr Fraser: “Is that an incitement to break the law?” Mr Hargest: “The Minister knows more about incitement than I do.” Mr Fraser: “If they try that game, they will be treated the same way as other Governments treated others.” Discussing the proposed expenditure on public works, Mr Hargest said the Minister of Public Works, Mr Semple, had not been curbed a bit. “Is he too strong for the rest of the Cabinet and for his confreres?” he asked. “I think he is.” Mr Hargest alleged that in the South Island recently 800 public works men had received overtime for listening to the Minister of Public Works addressing them at a recruiting meeting. That would have cost nothing less than £3OO.