DEPRESSION?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 177, 27 July 1940, Page 6

DEPRESSION?

BY STATE AID.

OUTSPOKEN CRITIC.

MR. DOXDGE ON EXPENDITURE

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, this day.-

The claim that the Public Works statement showed that the Government was not prepared to make the sacrifices the people were willing to make in their desire to get behind the Government and the United Kingdom in the effort to win the war was made by Mr. Doidge (Opposition—Tauranga) in the House of Representatives yesterday. Referring to the amendment moved by Mr. Broadfoot (Opposition—Waitomo) that the Public Works estimates be referred back for further consideration with a view to a reduction of other

than war expenditure, Mr. Doidge said that the Opposition maintained in support of the amendment that the Government's policy as outlined in the Public Works statement was deliberately building up another depression. The Government took office after a period of depression, and fm mediately accentuated the whole position to such an extent that the Minister of Finance himself recently had to tell the country that we had been over-spending at a the rate of £8,000,000 a year. The people would not whimper if the money was really required for war purposes, but when the situation was analysed it was found that we were still on a peace-time basis, while the rest of the Empire worked the clock round. In Great Britain four-fifths of the money raided went for war purposes, while in New Zealand we only spent one-third of what we raised.

Mr. Doidge said he would remind the Prime Minister that a fall in prices never made for a depression; what did make a slump was loss in profit, and if there was not an alteration in the Government's policy there would be no profits least of all for the primary producers, on whom so much depended.

"The people of New Zealand at present in their desire to get behind the Government and the Motherland in the effort to win the war," Mr. Doidge continued, "are prepared to do with less themselves in every way, but this proposal clearly indicates that the Government itself is not prepared to do without less. That, I think, is one of the reasons the country *. ill stand behind the amendment that has been brought down."