BUDGET AMENDMENT

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12820, 15 August 1939, Page 5

BUDGET AMENDMENT

MR DOIDGE’S SPEECH REPUDIATION OF DEBTS GOVERNMENT ATTITUDE In his speech in the House on the Budget Amendment, moved by the Rt. Hon. G. Forbes, Mr F. W. Doidge, Member for Tauranga, said: Mr Speaker, we listened this morning to an impassioned speech by the Acting Prime Minister. He spoke in a spirit of righteous indignation. Behind him sat in serried ranks the other members of the Government and they too were wearing; expressions, strangely unfamiliar to us, of respectability and rectitude. I would like to draw the attention of the House, and in particular of my friends on this side, to the change in that respect from last Wednesday night when the lion, member for Grey Lynn was delivering the speech which was responsible for the present debate. On that occasion, members of the Left Wing, throughout, the solid hour during which the lion, member for Grey Lynn spoke, watched with features which shone with adulation. There were other members —those members of the Labour party who are on the borderline and know not whether they are on the Right or Left Wing—who were there, supplying lots of sycophantic applause. Mr Speaker; Order. Mr Doidge: I withdraw “sycophantic.” It is equally true that members sitting on the Government front benches sat throughout that hour with countenances which were grim and gloomy. There is a difference noticeable to-day. To-day there is a vast change. To-day, the supporters of the hon. member for Grey Lynn have disappeared. They have been on the run the whole morning—every one of them. The hon. member must wonder where his friends are. There is not the slightest doubt that every one of them has been making apologies of one kind or another. Everyone of them has been endeavouring to tell us what the hon. member for Grey Lynn meant to say, but I take it that the hon.' gentleman, will, at some time or other during this debate, tell us what he really meant to say on Wednesday night, and make the position clear. Seemingly no member of the Government at the present time has any real understanding of his speech. On the other hand, it is true that right throughout the country there is an understanding of it —the whole country was shocked by that speech— ; and it is for that reason that the right hon. the member for Hurunui brought down his amendment. It was that amendment which stung the Acting Prime Minister into making , the speech which he made this morning—a speech he could have made at any time during the last twenty-four hours, knowing that the whole coun- , try was concerned over the sentiments expressed by the hon. member for Grey Lynn. In that speech, the Acting Prime Minister wisely took the line that attack should always be met by attack, and so this morning he took up the attack and suggested that members on this side of the House were responsible for arousing suspicions which had no foundation in fact.

An Hon, Member: And so you are. Mr Doidge: Nothing of the kind. Those who have listened to the speeches since the opening of the session know that ffhat is absolutely untrue; they know that there is a strong faction in this House in the form of the Left Wing of the party opposite, which, in season and out of season, expresses sentiments which are doing the country infinite , harm, which are damaging the country’s credit and havb made the mission of the Minister of Finance at Home so exceedingly difficult. It is true that the Acting Prime Minister repudiated repudiation this morning, but it is equally true that he did not repudiate the hon. member for Grey Lynn. On the contrary, he tried to whitewash the hon, gentleman by telling us that all the hon. gentleman had done was to analyse the possibilities of the financial future. Well let us for a moment examine some of the statements made by the hon. member for Grey Lynn on Wednesday night. If it is true that the Budget was a broadside, then it is equally true that the hon. gentleman’s speech was a bombshell. His speech was important for this reason: if the speech had been made by some inconsequential member of the Government from the back-benches, nobody would have been very much concerned; but the speech came from a member who is Under-Secretary to the Minister of Finance; from a member who, as everybody knows, wields immense influence within the ranks of his own party, and who is frequently referred to outside this House as a potential leader of his party. Mr O’Brien: The hoii. member is flattering him. .

Mr Doidge: I am not flattering him; but believe me I esteem the ability of the hon. member for Grey Lynn. I am not holding him lightly. I regard him as a most sinister influence in New Zealand politics. In exactly the same way, I may say, his speech was an advocacy of the policy of default; it was an advocacy of the policy of debt repudiation; and never before in the history of this House has so dangerous a speech been made, and never so pernicious a doctrine preached. Well, let us examine some of the statements' the hon. gentleman made. He admits that he said the Labour Government could carry this country against Shylocks at any time it said it was prepared to trust the people first and the ShylOckS second.

Mr Speaker: May I ask what the hon. member is quoting from?

Mr Doidge: I am quoting .from notes I made at the time the hon. member was speaking. I suggest that that statement can only be interpreted as intending to create a revolt in favour of repudiation. And again the hon. member for Grey (Continued on page 7.)