WAR EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 December 1943, Page 4

WAR EFFORT

LEND-LEASE ARRANGEMENT COMPARISON IN VALUES CRITICISM OF MR NASH’S POLICY “It is time that we asked for either a new Minister of Finance or a new Minister to Washington—in view of his -blunders we should ask for both,’’ said Mr L. T. Daniell at today’s meeting of the Wairarapa Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union. “It is small wonder that Ministers persist in their advocacy of controls after the war,” Mr Daniell continued. “The greater the damage done to our economy during the war by Government mismanagement, the greater will be the need for controls until some cleaning up is effected. So badly is our war effort being handled—and it is apparent that no other of the Allied nations has contributed more generously—that we may incur within another year or two of war an indebtedness to overseas of £loo,ooo,ooo.’This indebtedness must be viewed as an injustice, for it will have arisen through faulty methods of value, and from no other just cause. Does Mr Nash still contend that lease-lend is not a debt? “Comparisons can be made in Mr Nash’s own office of the prices of major products produced in this country, and the valuation of similar production in the United States,” said Mr Daniell. “Our wool clip is valued at 14d per lb, whereas America’s current clip is valued at 27.1 d per lb. Our best quality lamb is valued at 9d per lb., whereas the American price is 19.4 d per lb. Our pig meat is valued at 7d per lb, whereas the basic American price lately received is 13id per lb. We should have as Minister to Washington a man versed in these simple economic facts, a man who can undertake a comprehensive survey of them and work to establish an equable standard for the products of both fighting countries, ourselves and America. And as Minister of Finahce it is essential that we have a man imbued with the principles of economic justice, and one not so susceptible to the flatteries of Washington. As farmers,'we ask that this Dominion be more extensively and fairly credited for its contribution to the common pool.”