"CUTS"—OR RETRENCHMENT?

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 8

"CUTS"—OR RETRENCHMENT?

THE DOMINION'S CHOICE,

MR. FORBES STRESSES NEED,

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, this day,

"We wish to put our House in order, and I have no apology to make for introducing this bill, although I may have voted in the opposite direction in 1922," declared the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, in the House, when replying to statements by the Leader of the Labour party, Mr. H. E. Holland, that in 1922 he had supported the exemption from the wages "cut" of lower-paid officers. The Prime Minister said that what he did in 1922 had not the slightest bearing on his present actions, in view of the alteration in the position of the country. Labour members well knew that the Public Service could not be maintained at its present strength unless wages were reduced. He was as sorry' as anyone else that action had to be taken. Mr. W. E. Parry (Labour, Auckland Central): Sympathy is not much good at the breakfast table. . Mr. Forbes said many farmers had no wage.3 coming in, and had to work for bare food, and some could not pay their grocers' bills. To continue spending at the same rate as in the past was impossible. In those circumstances it was better to take action in the direction proposed than by any way of retrenchment. "I am no; complaining about the fight the Labour members are putting up," added the Prime Minister, "but these members must recognise that action had to be taken. It does not matter in the slightest how I voted in 1922. I know what is my duty at the present time, and what is being done is the minimum. I hope we will ba able to surmount our difficulties by these means."