PIOUS HOPES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 August 1939, Page 7

PIOUS HOPES

OF POLITICAL MICAWBERS MR. COATES PARAPHRASES BUDGET. NATIONAL ECONOMY OUT OF BALANCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “The Budget justifies the conclusion that the members of the Government are nothing but a party of political Micawbers, waiting for something to turn up,” said the Hi. Hon. .J. G. Coates (Opposition, Kaipara) dnring the financial debate in the House of Representatives yesterday. “They are pure opportunists.”' Mr. Coates said that the Budget contained many pious hopes and much emphasis of the need for community effort, but it did nothing to meet the * needs it described. Instead of encouraging the nation to work for real wealth it subscribed to the hope that something would turn up. “The Budget itself is not a long document as budgets go. but a fair paraphrase could make it. even shorter,” Mr. Coats continued. The Government in effect said: “We know that the road we have followed for the last three years has been the wrong road and that at the end of that road there is financial chaos. We know that in concentrating on the economics of distribution we have ignored the economics of production, and that our national output of goods is insufficient backing for the currency we have ordered to be created. WEALTH WITHOUT WORK? “We realise that our national economy is sadly out of balance and that the only way to get buck to a position of equilibrium is to discontinue uneconomic works, revise Government spending and allow industry to function in the production of useful goods. We know all these things, but certain of our more militant supporters. inside and outside Parliament, will have none of them. They believe that wealth can be won without working for it. This difference of opinion must be mightily embarrassing to the Government. “There is need in the country today for the strictest economy, and therefore we are increasing our expenditure from £35.773.000 to £38.243.‘000. Our revenue is falling, but if we adhered to last year’s expenditure last year’s surplus would enable us to balance the Budget. But our more militant members insist that we should spend more than we earn, so we have decided to collect from the people an extra £2,500,000 in taxation. They cannot afford it. we know, but when they allow themselves the luxury of a Labour Government they have to nav for it.” Mr. J. O’Brien (Government. Westland): “Everybody is happy.’’ • Mi. Coates: “Everyone is in great heai t .except the farmers, the importers, the taxpayers, the employers who cannot get labour because our Public Works Department has got in ahead of them, and the workers who are periodically going on strike’’ The Budget, Mr. Coates said, was like a rake’s Government expressing repentance for three years of riotous living, and at the same time admitting .that the spending habit had taken such a hold of it that it could not break itself. Every member of the Opposition could subscribe to the first three pages of the Budget, but the rest was al variance to an amazing degree with the principles set out in the beginning. Who wrote it, I wonder?” asked Mi. Coates. "It would be interesting do know who wrote the first part." The Acting-Prime Minister (Mr. I l aser): "It is the Prime Minister's Budget and nobody else’s.”