SLUMP THREATS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 20

SLUMP THREATS.

TALK DEPRECATED. COMMENT BY MR. SAVAGE. "NO NEED FOR RECESSION." (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) PALMERSTON NORTH. Tuesday. "We have been hearing this year and tast threats of a slump, mainly from interested persons who wish to scare the people into a sense of insecurity," ••aid the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, in his address when opening the National Dairy Show to-day. "I would like to •epcat now what I have stated on previnus occasions—that there is absolutely no necessity for any trade recession, unless business men prefer manufacturing slumps to manufacturing rather more useful articles."' "So long as there is an atmosphere of goodwill, reasonableness and give-and-take, there will be no slumps," Mr. Savage continued. "and when the nations of the world accept as a national responsibility the task of directing the national' economy on rational lines there will be no wild booms and slumps. Here in New Zealand during the past two years we have been putting the house in order with the very object of counteracting these fluctuations that hitherto have disgraced the modern history of this and other so-called civilised nations. Confident of Success. "The problem is a many-sided one. Largely it is a problem of economic and monetary policy, but it is also a problem of orderly production and distribution. We have proceeded a long way toward laying the foundation of a better order and. whatever events occur ovei - seas. I am confident of the success of our actions. New Zealand will stand any test. "If you put this picture alongside that which these slump merchants are calling up, surely you will protest with me at the intolerable stupidity of a system that encourages men to produce and live in comfort, and then prevents them from obtaining a share in the very goods they helped to produce. I for one am prepared to go a long way to prevent a recurrence of the sufferings and hardships which are still fresh in our minds. "My critics have said I have no experience in business, and for that reason am overlooking the realities of the situation," stated the Prime Minister. "I say this, and no sane man or woman will disagree with me, that the real test of progress is not found wholly in stock exchange quotations, big company profits, trade returns or statistics of production. It will be found rather in the social wellbeing of the people, and I am concerned above all things in seeing that their welfare is maintained. Adequate Precautions. "1 am one of those who believe that human beings are capable of asserting some control over their economic destiny,

and I wish to assure you that the Government is not prepared to accept the workings of economic adversity without taking adequate precautions to ward off its ill-effects. I would like to deprecate in the strongest terms this talk of slumps or future depressions, but still more strongly do 1 wish to condemn the point of view that slumps must be borne with patience and suffering as visitations of Providence. "I said many times that what human stupidity can bring about, human intelli gence should be capable of correcting, and that is all that the present Government is trying to put into effect," Mr. Savage concluded. "If it should fail in that, it fails in everything."