A SOCIALIST STATE

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20899, 5 July 1933, Page 15

A SOCIALIST STATE

DEBATERS DISCUSS FINANCE. CRITICISM BY SUPPORTERS OF DOUGLAS CREDIT. "A financial policy for socialist New Zealand" was the subject of a debate held by the Christchurch branch of the Friends of the Soviet Union last evening. The leader for the affirmative took the position of the first Minister for Finance in the first socialist government of New Zealand, and addressed his speech to the new House of Representatives. The leader was Mi" C. Morgan Williams, who was supported by Mr W. T. Conibear, while the speakers for the negative were Mr D. C. Davie and Mr A. R. AUardyce. of the Douglas social credit movement. Mr L» C. Walker presided. In his opening address Mr Williams said that it was not proposed to socialise all industry, particularly agriculture, which in New Zealand had been developed on sound mechanised lines. It was proposed, however, to socialise small scale agri-' culture and to establish collective farms. In the socialist state rent, interest, and profits would ultimately be eliminated. It would not be possible for rent to be eliminated at once, but profit would have to go immediately. Rent was only a cost to those individuals who used the land, and it was obvious that rent must be charged if certain people were not to benefit by the use of the better class of land. The financial principle on which Mr Williams* government based its policy was that the value of all goods was equal to the cost of the consumer's goods, plus the cost of capital goods. Wages were the only real cost in production, and they would be made great enough to provide sufficient purchasing power to buy all the goods produced. New Currency System. j The old currency system would be | abolished by the new government, and I the unit of currency would become I the day's wage of the unskilled worker. The state bank would have the sole right of issuing credit, and there would be a series of trusts to administer each section of industry! and labour, and a state planning commission which would have power over both banks and trusts. Mr Davie, for the negative, criticised the absence of definite figures in . Mr Williams's speech. In his opinion the speaker had not realised that socialism had progressed since the days of Karl Marx. We were the inheritors of a great cultural age of production, and everyone in the nation had a right to a share of the work done by our forefathers without having to do that work over again. There was already in existence, too, a great quantity of goods produced in the former capitalistic regime, and if it was necessary, as Mr Williams had claimed, to work for all goods produced and to spend the wages thus earned on the goods so produced, how were these goods already in existence to be produced? Absorption of Workers. It would be useless to scrap the present financial system until every worker had been absorbed into industry, a thing that would take some time, and it was impossible to make goods available only to those who worked. Women had a right to the benefit of the work of the men and to the work of their fathers, and therefore money must be paid out with which to purchase goods not only to

those who worked but also to those whose work the state did not require. Mr Conibear contended that in a socialist state women would be on an equality with men in labour. In such a state they would claim the right to work with the men for the benefit of the whole state. The speaker gave further details of the proposed trust system and of the method of financing it by long-term loans from the state. ar»d put forward a socialist budget showing revenue from railways, taxation, and national loans and expenditure on industry, national and cultural development, the army and navy, administration, state loan expenses, and reserve funds. The expenditure side Sf this budget, he claimed, would be ased purely on the expected national income. Mr AUardyce strongly criticised the capacity .for their positions of both the minister for finance and his assistant in the new government. The problem was not, as they seemed to think, one of production, but one of distribution. Money was the mechanism by which goods were distributed and what the socialist government had to settle was how to keep this mechanism operating. The speaker criticised Mr Conibear*s taxation proposals and his scheme for long-term loans to the trusts. What was necessary, he claimed, was that there should be a separate fund to act as the mechanism of distribution as well as the fund for production. The leaders then replied and th« debate closed.