CREATING MONEY

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 103, 28 October 1932, Page 12

CREATING MONEY

FOR OLD-AGE PENSIONS

.A suggestion that the creation of new money with Which to pay old-age pensions would be the first step toward a recovery from the present economic stress was'made by Mr. H. G. R. Mason (Labour, Auckland Suburbs) in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon. Mr. Mason said the Budget referred to the "economic blizzard," a phrase which summed up the whole difference between^ the point of view of the Government and the point of view of the Labour Party. The Government had thrown up the sponge. The Government attributed its troubles to something over which it,had no control; it considered that its troubles were due to a sort of convulsion of Nature. All the Budget did was to point to further ways of reducing the purchasing power of the people. New Zealand had to wait for London and London was waiting for an economic conference in which the whole world was to unite. The Budget spoke of stabilising exchanges, but the choice of that method would make a solution of .their problems impossible. ■ The Government also spoke of the need for sound finance, but if sound finance meant that there were to be bankruptcies, suicides, poverty, and all sorts of misery, then the sooner they did away with it the better. "Let us "have the rottenest finance rather than such conditions," said Mr. Mason.

The speaker said he believed if the Government created new money or credits for the payment of such things as old-age pensions, they would begin to see. the way out of their difficulties. That would be one method of putting new money into circulation. Even the Budget indicated that the present financial system could not last much longer. .