DEMOCRAT PARTY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 8, 22 October 1935, Page 3

DEMOCRAT PARTY

VIEWS ON EXCHANGE PROBLEM.

THE LEADER AT INVERCARGILL.

(Per Press Association).

INVERCARGILL, October 21'

Except for a few seats in the gallery, the Civic Theatre was filled when the leader of the Democrat Party (Mr T. C. A. Hislop) opened his South Island campaign and expounded in detail the party’s principles and programme. Mr Hislop was welcomed with applause as he took his chair on the stage. At the conclusion of his speech a motion of thanks and confidence was carried.

Dealing with the exchange rate, Mr Hislop declared that he had believed at the very commencement that the raising of the rate was wrong in principle, and he still believed that. He had beljeved that the farmers had to be helped in a period of depression, but the Government’s policy was not the right one. Sir Alfred Ransom, when speaking in the North Island, had stated that in the last exporting season the exchange had been worth £9,000,000 to the farmers. That statement, however, was grossly misleading and utterly incomplete. Against that £9,000,000, what had happened? asked Mr Hislop. The Dominion’s interest bill in London had gone up by nearly £2,000,000 a year. Every single service from the farm to London had gone up. The sales tax of 5 per cent, which was about 12 per cent, when the man in the street paid it, had been put on, and prices were up all round. Of the £9,000,000, not one penny had been clear profit to the farmer. At the expense, both of damaging the Dominion’s reputation in the Old Country, New Zealand’s best market, and putting up costs all round, the exchange rate had been raised. Once the exchange had been put up, it was difficult to retrieve it, as one silliness led to another.

policy on Exchange. “We believe we should get away from these artificialities,” said Mr Hislop. “We should get our money into the proper relationship with sterling. But we are not silly; we are not going round crying ‘ Off with the exchange.’ The Government brought in the higher • rate against the advice of its own Minister for Finance and its own Treasury. We say this Government put the exchange up, and it can’t bring it down without an admission that it is not prepared to make, and if that rate stays up the debt ol this country to London is increased by £40,000,000. Our view is that the exchange should be brought to its true level with sterling. We would require the Reserve Bank, with the co-operation of the other banks, to bring about a reduction by the method, by the time, and by the degree that they may think best in the interests of the whole Dominion. It is a delicate matter, and we do not intend to interfere, but to leave it to the banks. We say the exchange rate should be brought down, and can be brought down. When it does come down, then we’ll get back our good name in the Old Country, and wo will he able by- savings in exchange to pay to the farmer on his production a bounty at least as helpful to him as the exchange. Wo are not proposing unlimited bounties, for when prices are restored to a paying level then there will be no necessity for them.”

War veterans’ Pensions. After dealing with the party’s national health scheme,. Mr Hi.slop said that the Government had recently brought down, after long delay, the War Veterans Bill, hut a definite injustice to returned soldiers had not been .remedied. Every returned - man who broke down in health had to prove that his incapacity was definitely duo to war service. That sounded all right in theory, but Mr Hislop said he knew of many cases where that requirement worked great injustice in practice. In many cases hospital records were not taken, while many men did not go to hospital at all. “We are going in all these cases to put the onus not on the returned men, but on the State, to prove that illness or death was not,,due to war service,” he said. Mr Hislop declared that the Government had gone to the people in desperation for candidates, offering to pay all expenses and £250. s Afterwards lie criticised Mr Coates’ budgets, and said that for every pound the Minister estimated to get lie was £2OO out. He was not afraid of Mr Coates, and was going to chase him through the country as hard as he (Mr Hislop) coidd.