LABOUR POLICY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 303, 5 October 1935, Page 2

LABOUR POLICY

GUARANTEED PRICES.

SPEECH BIY Mr savage.

(Per Press Association). BLENHEIM, October 4, In an address to a large audience at Blenheim to-night the Leader of the Opposition (Mr M. J. Savage, M.P.) replied to recent Government and Press criticism of the Labour Party’s guar-' anteed prices policy. Mr ,Sa v age summarised his argument as follows: “(1) Exports provide the only means whereby external national commitments can be met. “(2) The obligation to export therefore becomes a national one, which should lie guaranteed by the nation. “(3) The high rate of exchange provides a temporary, costly, and uneconomic method of guarantee, because (a) It ultimately cancels itself out: (b) it acts as a brake on United; Kingdom sales to New Zealand, and there fore lessens the British market for Dominion products; (c) it assists ,the exporter most when he needs it least i.e., the higher the prices received for exports the greater the subsidy accruing from the high rate of exchange. “(4) A guaranteed price need not necessarily exceed the amount paid at present, approximately £10,000,000 annually. It would be alternative to, and not an addition to, the high rate of exchange, and the exporter would obtain the greatest benefit when prices for exports were low. “(5) The main question in dispute is whether we shall continue .to raise from the people of New ealand by means of an indirect form of taxation known as a high rate of exchange not less than £10,000,000 annually for subsidising exporters, or by the control and use of the public credit through, the Reserve Bank we should pay Uiat amount to exporters without impesing the indirect form of tax referred to. Labour says the payment should be made through the Reserve Bank and not from taxation.”