LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 11

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY DEBATE

Tho Legislative Council met'at 2.30 p.m. to-day. Resuming the Address-in-Reply debate, tho Hon. Six' Thomas Sidcy, Lead--1 er of tho Council, said he proposed to confine himself in his reply to tho remarks of tho Hon. Sir Francis Bell. • The Government in bringing down its ■ financial proposals had only' dono so 1 with tho greatest reluctance. The real valuo of wages would not be less than 1 they wcro tt-'s time last year, and it was only because of that tho Government felt obliged to bring down, its proposals. Sir Francis Bell had said that the pre- ■ sent position was not to be regarded 'as a war crisis. Why had he taken up 1 that attitude? Sir Thomas Sidey said that the answer was simply that Sir Francis Bell himself had advocated and • supported, as a member of tho then ■ Government, a course precisely similar ' to that which the present Government 1 was adopting to-day. Sir Francis Bell: "Does that not ap- ' ply to yourself?" Sir Thomas Sidcy: "I am dealing for tho present with the right honour--1 able gentleman." ; Ho declared that the 1922 and 1931 crises were both war aftermaths, with ' this exception, that the 1931 crisis was the worse of the two. There had been 1 a substantial drop in primary products prices. In some cases wages had ' dropped, but on the whole there had been an increase of 5G per cent, as against a '50 per cent, reduction on all groups of retail prices for food groups. Ho claimed that-the real wages of the people would be equal to their former value; they would bo equal at least to the 1914 value. ■ • : (Proceeding.)