GOVERNMENT POLICY

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 17, 4 March 1941, Page 6

GOVERNMENT POLICY

ZEALAND

A WARNING

SOCIALISATION OF NEW

NATIONALIST M.P. UTTERS

Despite the war, the Government was persisting in carrying on its policy of socialisation of the Dominion, said Mr Harker, M.P. for Waipawa, in an address at Wellington last week.

Socialisation of means of production, distribution and exchange was included in the constitutional * aims of the Labour Party, he said. Socialisation of the means of production, in a primary producing country such as New Zealand, most certainly would mean socialisation of the land itself. Anybody who studied the Small Farms Amendment Act would realise .that Mr Langstone meant the socialisation of the land, for he believed it would be the best thing for New Zealand to institute large-scale communal farms on the; Russian system.

Socialisation of production meant the taking over by the State of every industry in the Dominion.

Socialisation of distribution was already in existence. There were very good reasons why the railway system, like the post office, should be a State service, but how far beyond that the principle should go was questionable.

Socialisation of the means of exchange meant control of the monetary system. Exchange in most countries was controlled by the trading banks. The caucus of the Labour Party had repeatedly carried resolutions recommending that the Government should take over the Bank of New Zealand forthwith. Mr Nash, however, knew perfectly well that if he took over the Bank of New Zealand administrative costs would go up, and the people would find they were getting worse service, while the old whip-ping-boy of .the banks would be gone forever.

When a country reached the point where the number of administrators was out of all proportion to the number of producers, it added many more millions to its national debt and national taxation in the endeavour to carry that expense. As far back as 1928 public men and business men had warned the public that there were too many administrators in New Zealand compared with producers. If the numbers were too high then, what must-they be now? Leaving out all civil servants who were absolutely necessary to the running of the country, there were in 1935 some 5000 whom he described as luxury ones. Instead of acting like a prudent administrator and putting them back into productive enterprise, and so increasing national production, the Government had multiplied their numbers by four, so that there were now some 20,000 and their numbers were still growing.

"If the Government follows this road to its logical end," he said, "every producer of us will be obliged to support, not only a wife and family, but a civil servant as \ well." i It would mean that the superanI nuation fund, like the social secur- I ity fund, would be unable to face the drain imposed on it, and it would be questionable if the Government would be able to pay oldage or other pensions, except with an inflated currency which would purchase no more that the 10/- a week of Mr Seddon's time.

"The National Party is not opposed to social security, as our opponents say," he said. "It is opposed? to social insecurity. Wihen a country overspends its income at the rate of £7,000,000 a year, it is not going to be long before there is no security there, social or otherwise."—"The Dominion."