ADDRESS-INREPLY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 9

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY

MORE SPEECHES IN DEBATE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 15. The Address-in-Reply debate was still in progress when the House of Representatives adjourned this evening. Mr J. R. Marshall (Opposition, Mount Victoria) said the present Government placed too much emphasis on distribution and exchange and too little on production. The Government was too concerned about cutting the cake and too little interested in making a bigger one. Such a policy, by causing disharmony between purchasing power and production, inevitably caused inflation. More production could be achieved only through more work; yet the Government had recently sanctioned a reduction of hours in one industry from 40 to 35. Government policy on overtime did not encourage people to work longer hours, because excessive penalties were placed on overtime work. Mr Marshall said the same principle was followed in regard to taxation, which had passed the point at which the incentive to greater effort ceased to exist. New Zealand’s production of butter and cheese had declined by 8 per cent, in the last '0 years. Meat production, although it had increased by 27 per cent, had not kept pace with that of South Africa, where the increase was 45 per cent., of Canada, 40 per cent., and the United States, 48 per cent. Failure to achieve a sub-, stantial expansion of production was the Government’s responsibility. Mr Marshall said the Labour Party, in spite of its genuine condemnation of the seditious and subversive activities of Communists, had the same ultimate goal as Communists: a socialised economy. The Labour Party was a recruiting ground for Communists, because many Labour supporters, becoming impatient with slow progress towards Socialism, joined the Communists.

Dr. A. M. Finlay (Government. North Shore): It is just as fair to call an impatient Nationalist a Fascist. Production of Electricity Mr D. W. Coleman (Government, Gisborne) said the penal rates to which Mr Marshall had referred were fixed by the Arbitration Court —in most cases with the prior agreement of employers and workers. The Government had nothing to do with the matter. Mr Marshall had talked of declining production, but had failed to say that the production of hydro-elec-tricity had risen during Labour’s administration from 989.329 units a kilowatt hour to 2,528,215. The Government had given the people increased purchasing power and would continue to do so, said Mr Coleman. Savings bank deposits had risen from £60,000,000 in 1935 to £224,000.000. an increase of 267 per cent. Bankruptcies had* declined sharply and the number of telephones and motor-cars in use had risen steeply—sure indicators of prosperity. Mr J. T. Watts (Opposition, St. Albans) said the increased savings bank deposits were a measure of inflation and of the fact that people could not find goods or investments to buy with their money. All that Government members had been able to produce in the debate were fulsome ana extravagant claims on all that the Government had done in the last id years For Government members to quote Post Office Savings Bank figures as a proof of prosperity Was only emphasising that there was inflation. There was too much money and P®°P“: banked it because there were not tne °°Mr S Want's considered that record timber production was achieved huge amount of overtime which

the Government subsidised by 80 per cent. Mr P. G. Connolly (Government, Dunedin) said that propaganda statements that the South Island was being neglected had had a detrimental effect on young people, who were swayed by such statements and decided to move to the North Island. He considered the propaganda was 100 per cent, political. Mr A. G. Osborne (Government, Onehunga): And the Tories say the same in Auckland, too. Mr Connolly: I’m not concerned with that. Auckland and Wellington can fight it out. There was, however, a need for greater decentralisation of overseas shipping, said Mr Connolly. Many South Island factories depended on raw materials from overseas and some had had their production interrupted by shipping delays.