WAR DEBT BURDEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 180, 1 August 1941, Page 2

WAR DEBT BURDEN

EXEMPTION FOR SOLDIERS (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. In his reply to the Budget debate in the House of Representatives last night, the acting-Prime Minister (Mr Nash) said that every endeavour would be made by the Government to free the men who had gone overseas on service from the burden of the war debt on their return, and to transfer it to those who had remained behind. Mr. Nash said he agreed with the member for Grey Lynn (Mr. Lee) that it would be unfair for men who had gone overseas to come back to work to provide the goods out of which New Zealand's debt would be repaid. They had had to help to do it after the last war. If it were possible for the Government to work out a plan to free the men who went away from the payment of the debt incurred to enable them to fight and to make those who stayed behind pay it, then the Government would do that. He did not know at the present time how it was to be done, but if there was a way to ensure that those who went to fight could be kept as free as possible from the load of debt afterwards, then as one member of the Government he would try to find that way.