BANKING SYSTEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 268, 12 November 1935, Page 10

BANKING SYSTEM.

CANDIDATE'S CRITICISM. VIEWPOINT OF LABOUR. "Would you sell the post offices and the hospitaU to an American syndicate?" asked Mr. A. S. Richards, Labour candidate for Roskill, in the course of an address at the Methodist Church Hall, Greenwood's Corner, last evening. A Voice: I'd sell the whole country. (Laughter.) Mr. Richards announced at the outset that he intended to touch on a few points of the Labour party's platform, and maintained that control of currency and banking would be the solution of many of the present, difficulties. It was the iirst time that the banks had taken an active interest in a campaign. Banking was a fascinating etudy; it was a system that had grown up, and it was having a big effect on the lives of the people. Birmingham had had a banking system since 1919, and it had proved so successful that the Government would not grant any other cities a similar light. There could be no recovery unless New Zealand did what Canada proposed to do—nationalise the banks— as private banking since ite inception had been followed by created booms and depressions, and that would continue as long as private banks had the control that they did. * The candidate claimed "that it was sound economics to give the farmers a guaranteed price, as the farmer should know what he was to get, just the same as any other worker. The Canterbury wheat farmers had a guaranteed price. The Motucka by-election, was won on a guaranteed price for apples, and the honey producers used to have a guaranteed price. Through tho war period there were guaranteed prices, and exchange was only a guaranteed price. Unless tho farmers had guaranteed prices they would be unable to stay on tho land. To carry out the scheme the Labour party would not borrow threepence, but would use the credit of the country. In the last ten years the New Zealand farmers had doubled production, but most of the money went into the pockets of people who neither toiled nor spun. Mr. Richards referred to the formation of the Coalition Government in 1931, and said that the Labour party was ignored, and lie was prepared to meet any of the National party leaders on the platform and debate the question with them. The candidate received a vote of thanks and confidence.