DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 8, 10 July 1939, Page 8

DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The outstanding feature of "New Zealander's" articles and letters that have appeared in your paper during the past few weeks is their utter disregard for facts. Their author blunders blindly on from misstatement to misstatement —the further he goes the deeper -he gets into the morass. In his previous letter he charged members of the Labour Party with the use of certain expressions, the accuracy of which I challenged and asked for proof. Instead of proof, however, "New Zealander" now says, in effect, that it really does not matter whether the alleged expressions were or were not used, the position is just the same. It would seem that facts are not required for -your correspondents purpose; all that .is needed is a fertile imagination. Again, in a previous letter, he said that the Prime Minister "is now silent on that subject," that is, on the subject of the effect that raising wages and reducing hours had on the return of prosperity to New Zealand. ' Today he says, "This Government is bull-dozing the people with the idea that nothing matters but the 40-hour week and higher wages." His second statement in this connection is a direct contradiction of the first. It Would, be interesting to know which of these two conflicting statements "New Zealander" wants your readers to believe. Being unable to find facts in the Dominion with which to support his allegations, "New Zealander" leaves his native heath and makes excursions to Great Britain and Ancient Rome. I am quite prepared to remain in New Zealand, where there is a wealth of data available to quote in support of the Labour Government's administration. I admit, however, that there is one point of similarity between New Zealand today and the Roman Empire of years ago. Rome had to rise before it fell; New Zealand is definitely on the rise at the present time. - "New Zealander" displays a definite lack of economic knowledge when he says that "new industries will not add one penny to our exchange funds." He should know that one of the principal uses to which our sterling funds are put is to pay for imports. If goods are manufactured locally they need not be imported, and, therefore, the drain on overseas funds would be considerably eased. The policy of the Government in this direction is to enable New Zealand to live within its income. This, in mv opinion, is a prudent and statesmanlike policy. It does not mean, however, that we will cease to import, but that our imports will be correlated to our exports.—l am, etc., A. PARLANE.