POLITICAL INACTIVITY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 57, 8 March 1932, Page 6

POLITICAL INACTIVITY

T. H. E. expresses the opinion that the advocacy for a high exchange, expressed simply, is nothing more or leas than a system of high duty, "worse in its .incidence than a Customs duty, which at least gives relief in cases where it is warranted, but a high exchange rate simply imposes a penalty on imports whether they are necessities or whether they are mere luxuries." The correspondent concludes:—"As a lifelong opponent of political labour one is forced to have a very great deal of sympathy with the, present supporters of labour* because the fact remains that at the present time the people' who are suffering, and whom it is proposed to make suffer, .are those who are least in the position to either bear the suffering or to effectively protest against it. ...

"The whole effect o£ increasing exchange, of reducing people to relief rates of wages, is simply, leading to business stagnation, and however valuable the farmer is to New Zealand it is jusfc as

neecssary to have people able and willing to pay taxes which the: farmer cannot pay, and yet the inactivity- of the Government in handing control over. to various commissions is simply leading to hundreds of business men being driyen to the wall, and the last result will be worse than the first. A perusal of the banking position given in your issue of the 3rd instant shows New Zealand to be, one would say, in a fortunate position. . -\, . An internal loan, even if forced, could settle the unemployment question for at least two years. The money thus borrowed would merely be a transfer from. present idle money to an active Government account. It would practically be spent internally, and would merely be the njeans of circulating money in New Zealand; and yet we have a Government in power which either cannot or will not tsike what, to the average business man, must be a fairly obvious course. , • .■ : .

Last autumn a crisis arose in Great Britain. A General Election was held which showed practically the whole of the people unanimous in deciding for one party. That was a party which could be called a "Country" Party ih the broadest sense of the word. A -few months ago an election was held in New Zealand which resulted in much political strife, and certainly New Zealand welfare did not play a prominent part in the ultimate result. Withura few weeks of the British elections Parliament was at work putting the House in order. In New Zealand three months elapsed before Parliament even met. So far -the only upshot has been the appointment of a number of commissions—some of them certainly consisting of eminent theorists;-and so far as the Government is concerned, all that has been heard in New Zealand has been nearly a week's talk with nothing done, and it appears that nothing will be done unless the Press, through ventilating the feelings of the general business community, convince politicians, that unless they themselves take on the responsibilities for which they are paid they are likely to lose their seats.