THE GOVERNMENT EXPLAINS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 18 September 1937, Page 20

THE GOVERNMENT EXPLAINS

TO THE EDITOR OX XHE PRESS, Sir,—lt might be well for the Prime Minister and his Cabinet confreres it they appreciated the mystification of the public who have endeavoured to get a clear view of the Governments policy and intentions from the report of the debate on the Imprest Supply Bill this week. when several Ministers took part and endeavoured to make their “plans” plain and inteliipyble. The endeavour was quite in vain. The public are more mystified than ever. May I be allowed to state a few of the statements made during the debate which mystify me, an ordinary elector. , In reply to Mr Adam Hamilton s pointed questions Mr Savage gave an explanation of what he means by his oft-repeated shibboleth. “Using the public credit” to finance Government schemes. But I am more in the dark than ever as to what he really means or how, without resort to the printing press and the issue of paper money, he is going to make the public credit an interchangeable medium of exchange or currency. Will Mr Savage please explain further? If it be by the issue of Treasury notes or bonds, these must bo negotiable at the banks, and would virtually be equivalent to ordinary bank notes. If the intention be to make the Reserve Bank issue notes to the amount desired, will that not be the equivalent of inflation and recourse to the printing press and paper money, which latter course Mr Savage explicitly disclaimed? Mr S. G. Holland, dealing with unemployment, made a case against the Government which the Ministers who replied to him were quite unable to answer. Ho said that the unemployment problem was never worse, and the Government, after nearly two years of power, had failed to end the unemployment in a few months, as it, or Ministers, orornised to do. Latest figures, he declared, showed 19.300 men engaged on public works, with 30,800 registered unemployed, a total of over 50,000. It was quite right to include the men on public works in that total, for public works were now openly recogrjsed as unemployed relief works. Notwithstanding Mr Holland's indictment, which the Minister. Mr Webb, did not even attempt to refute, Mr Webb came forward with still more promises, ignoring the promises that the Government had failed to fulfil. Sanguine to the last, and turning his eyes away from the 20.000 unemployed. Mr Webb promised there would soon be work for all. But the promise is discredited by the Government’s past record in the matter, and it is scouted by the unemployed themselves. They have lost faith and hppe in the Government long ago. It has sold them too many pups in that way during the last two years. Mr Webb again took credit for tho fact that the Government had abolished men’s camps and bettered tho lot of the Public Service workers by shortening the working hours and increasing the wages. That is admitted, but what consolation is in that to the man who is not lucky enough to get a public works job? And there are more than 20 000 of those unlucky ones. To me it anpears positively scandalous that the Government should gloat upon giving 20,000 men on the public works wages which appear positively scandalous when compared with tho sustenance allowance paid to 20,000 sustenance men. Or have it the other wa v that the sustenance allowance is scandalous compared with the wages oaid on public works. And remember there arc thousands on sustenance capable of giving and eager to give as good service as the emnloyed workers but they are kept marking time on a miserable pittance, which Mr Webb describes as an allowance which allows them to live decently.—Yours, etc., PLEBEIAN. September 16, 1937.