DEBATE CONTINUED

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 85, 7 October 1932, Page 9

DEBATE CONTINUED

TO-DAY'S DISCUSSION

The debate on tho Financial Statement was continued in the House of Representatives to-day. • Only two speeches had been, completed when the adjournment was taken at" 1 o'clock.

Mr. H. T. : Armstrong^ (Labour, Christchurch East) said the financial position would go from bad to worse unless the Government grappled with the', problem of currency, and ■ Soon it would not be worth while exporters sending their produce overseas. Dealing with the Ottawa Conference, with the results of which he expressed dia-. appointment,- Mr. Armstrong said that it was not reasonable to expect that tho Old Country would place an embargo on goods from countries outside the Empire. The establishment of a market within New Zealand was the only way iii which-lasting benefit would accrue, to the Dominion's primary prfoducers: It was essential that the purchasing power of the people should be increased, and that could be accomplished only by increasing Wages. It was just as easy to legislate to lift the people, up as to legislate to depress them. Secondary industries had been protected till they had got oft their feet, and then they were made bankrupt through the diminished purchasing power of the people. As in the case

of America, New Zealand had produced more from the land in recent years with fewer workers and tho question of crowding the land could not be overlooked.1 Banking and currency, two of tho mcTst important questions of to-day, had received scant attention in the Budget. The times demanded that the Minister of Finance should give more attention to those subjects. Mr. Armstrong also criticised the suggestion that the activities of New Zealand's trad 6 representatives should bo curtailed. He appealed to the Government to do something in the way of developing' the secondary industries. , INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES. The Hon. A. D. McLeod (Government, Wairarapa), referring to markets in the Pacific, contended that labour industrial activities had hampered those markets. •■■ Mr.- D. G. Sullivan (Labour, Avon): Would you explain just what you mean? Mr. McLeod: I don't think it needs any explanation. The Union Company, a company we wcro once proud of, has been driven off the coast. Mr. W. E. Parry (Labour, Auckland Central): What, havo you to say about tho American shipping company that drove them off? Mr. McLeod: lam :not going into that .question. - i.-.The -National Expenditure Commission's report', Mr..-McLeod contended, was the Treasury's/opinion. The shifting, of the load from tho general taxpayer to the local taxpayer was not going to be a national economy. He thought that the gentleman responsible for the addendum went out of his way to put in. a passage in a very ill-fitting place, but he (the speaker.). was not seViously worried with the truth containcd'itt it..., ..... 'Mr. MeLeod went on. to jcfer ; to the necessity of primary production. Mr., F. Jones .(Labour, ' Dunodin South): If you got tho labour for nothing, could you make it pay? - Mr, McLood: It is not what you can get -the labour at; it's a . question, of adjusting the cost. '.[...'. In reference to the Ottawa Conference, Mr. McLeod said that if the- secondary industries had nothing to fear, as had been stated, then.tho farmers had. ' ... , . The Rev. C. L. Carr (Labour, Timaru) said - the Government was condemned, as it were, out of its own mouth by'the Commission's report. Was it an economy to impoverish the Plu&k'et Society, and-restrict school dental and medical services? What would bo the effect on th"4 race?