"FAILURE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 171, 22 July 1939, Page 13

"FAILURE."

GOVERNMENT POLICY. HIGH INTEREST RATES. LOCAL BODY DIFFICULTIES. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Charging the Government with having failed to live up to its undertaking to keep intereet rates down, Mr. J. N. Massev (Opposition, Franklin), speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives yesterday, said that local bo<lies to-day could not borrow money at 31 per ccnt. Yet the Government had been talking about making money available at one per cent, at the cost of manufacturing it.

Mr. Massey recalled the steps taken by the previous Government to reduce interest rates. As a chairman of a local body he believed that local bodies could not borrow money to-day at less than per cent, although members of the Government had said from every public platform that they would keep down interest rates. County councils from one end of the country to the other were strongly opposed to increasing the iburden on ratepayers. They realised that they must operate according to the ability of the ratepayers to meet the charges. While he admitted that the present Government had assisted country people in many directions he could not see that a population of 1,500,000 could maintain about 23,000 men on public works. It would only mean that other industries were being starved of labour. Could New Zealand afford to pay for the high standard of roads now being demanded by the Main Highways Board, the Public Works Department and the travelling public? A Government Member: And the farmers. Time For Review. Mr. Massey said he thought that everyone in the House representing a rural area would agree that the man who paid for the roads should have the privilege of using them, and he thought that more money should be spent on roads in the outer areas. The time had arrived to review the whole question of local body taxation, which had increased by leaps and bounds. He thought also that there should be an overhaul of the system of hospital rating. In every part of New Zealand the public hospitals were overcrowded and the demand for accommodation would be increased as a result of the Social Security legislation. Mr. T. H. McCombs (Government, Lvttelton): Going to make more people sick? Don't be silly. Mr. Speaker: Order, order. Hospital taxation was becoming a burden and an overhaul of the system was overdue, asserted Mr. Massey.