IN RETROSPECT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 102, 1 May 1936, Page 9

IN RETROSPECT.

MR. COATES' DILEMMA.

ADVOCACY OF RESTRICTION

MR. LANGSTONE'S TAUNT.

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Thursday.

Criticising the former Minister of Finance (Mr. Coates) in the House of Representatives to-night, when speaking in the second reading debate on the Primary Products Marketing Bill, the Minister of Lands (Mr. Langstone) referred to the statement of the exMinister that lie had never advocated restriction.

"He talks about a 'pirating bill'," said Mr. Langstone, and he then went 011 to quote from a blue pamphlet issued by Mr. Coates in 1933 advocating a quota. "It is all ridiculous nonsense," said Mr. Langstone. "I would call it the Coates dilemma." The Minister blamed Mr. Coates for the breakdown in marketing in 1920. Mr. H. G. Dickie (National, Patea): Nonsense.

Mr. Langstone said Mr. Coates had scrapped the marketing arrangements at that time to bring about a sellers' market instead of a buyers' market, which had obtained previously. The right honourable gentleman was responsible for the cut-throat competition in selling in the United Kingdom, which cost the farmers of New Zealand £2,000,000 a year. He had been guessing, like all the members on the other side of the House. The policy of Mr. Coates was to raise prices by creating a scarcity. "Our policy is 'plenty at right prices,' not 'scarcity and high prices,'" declared the Minister. "That is the difference between the Labour policy and the policy of the previous Government."

The Minister said that Tooley Street knew more about the number of cows in New Zealand and the amount of butterfat produced far better than the average New Zealander. They had their commercial detectives scattered throughout the Dominion. Mr. Coates had suggested distributing the surplus to the poor, and said that some might be sent to tho East for a few pence a pound. The suggestion was that Chinamen could eat our butter and we could eat their rice. That was the policy of the member for Kaipara, said Mr. Langstone. Mr. Langstone said that if New Zealand gave 25,000 tons away the internal lirice would flop and there would be another dilemma. Mr. Coates had found himself in the same position as Mr. Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, who had got into a dark tunnel and could only see a glowi worm ahead. 'I he English papeis had referred to Mr. Coates blue pamphlet, stating that it gave arguments in favour of a butter quota, and that it weighed the pros and cons of the proposition. "That was on May 5, 1!>:!3," said Mr. Langsotne, "and the lion, gentleman had the audacity last night to sav he did not believe in restriction. He believed in it when he wrote the pamphlet Now when he is in Opposition, where he is likely to stay, lie does not believe in any form of restriction."