HIGH EXCHANGE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 151, 7 April 1933, Page 3

HIGH EXCHANGE

OPPOSITION BY FARMERS. MR McDOUGALL’S STATEMENT. (Special to the “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, April G. Passing through Wellington this week was Air Da.vid AlcDougall, member for Atataura, who was strong in his opposition to the Banking Exchange (Indemnity) Bill. He is still of the same mind, and in a breezy interview, characteristic of his mode of expression in Parliament, he gave his impressions of farming opinion in Southland on the subject. “Political suicide was my fate, they told me, but they don’t think that in my own electorate,’ 5 declaimed Air AlcDougall. “I was at. the Wyndham trots recently, a most successful meeting, where they put a record sum through the totalisator. Did I find a farmer there who now believes in high exchange? Not one. They all agreed with me, for not one solitary farmer there approved of it. “Then I had a change of venue, going later to the opening of a church at Alataura, where I met nothing but very Scotch, religious people, very honest and plain-spoken. We talked about this high exchange, and not one was in favour of it. And hei’e’s another case; the Prime Minister got a letter from the Seaward Bush dairy factory, congratulating him on the increased exchange, hut I have just met one of the directors, who told me he knew nothing about that letter, .and would not agree with the opinion it expressed. And my own opinion is that if the Government did the right thing they would do away with it now.”