CLOSER SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 243, 13 October 1936, Page 8

CLOSER SETTLEMENT.

WANGANUE CITY'S NEED. INTEREST-FREE MONEY. (By Telegraph.—Press, Association.) WANGANUI,* tjiis day. A public meeting of wide interest last night was attended by nine members of Parliament, all of them representing the Government of the day. The purpose of the meeting was to stress the major needs of Wanganur city and district in tho hope that the legislators would not be without a first-hancj knowledge of the future possibilities of this part of New Zealand. Judging by the principal speeches the two major needs of the city are closer settlement and the erection of increased housing accommodation by the use of interest-free money created by the Reserve Bank. Mr. J. Siddells advocated an intense closer settlement scheme, even if it meant State action to acquire the necessary land. Mr. P. E. Tingey staunchly supported what he believed to be an obvious intention on the part of the Government to create £5,000,000 of interest-free credit for housing. He estimated Wanganui's share of that sum at £100,000. Mr. A. S. Richards, M.P. for Roskill, and Senior Government Whip, in answer to Mr. Siddells, said that Wangariui had not suffered any more than other centres perhaps in respect to settlement, but the problem of New Zealand was not one of increasing production, but of increasing consumption. 1 To Mr. Tingey, Mr. Richards issued a warning that unless the production of goods and services absolutely equated the amount of the national dividend it was proposed to issue, the country would have troubles ten times worse than at present. Mr. Tingey and those supporting the Douglas theory were too impatient. He could assure the meeting that Labour would not use the orthodox broom of the past, but it had to move carefully; it would go 95 per cent of the way towards the goal of no interest.