MR. SEMPLE ON FINANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 8

MR. SEMPLE ON FINANCE

(To the Editor.)

Sir.-2-In opening hi*, campaign, Mr. Semple is reported as saying "By the Government's deflationary policy, £115,000,000 of consumers' capital has been taken out of circulation in about four years." From this it would appear that Mr.- Semple lays the blame for the recent world-wide depression on the shoulders of the New Zealand Government, which of course is utter rubbish. Mr. Semple may reasonably be credited with knowing that a considerable portion of the national income of the Dominion is derived from overseas markets and to suggest that when this income is largely reduced by external factors over which New Zealand has no control whatever the country can carry on at its prior rate of expenditure is, to put it mildly, an insult to the intelligence of the electors of Wellington East.

The control of credit and currency' in New Zealand, as advocated by Mr. Semple, sounds very much like the story of the French "assignats" of 1790-96, or the more recent history of the German "mark." In both cases the . currencies became practically worthless and the public credit suffered serious repercussions. Is this the goal offered to "God's Own Country" by Mr. Semple?

This same gentleman has also been reported as a destructive critic of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and of .the Mortgage Corporation of New Zealand. The former he would doubtless turn into a State bank under political control to handle credit and currency with, I fear, the same result as in France and Germany referred to above. The latter he would reconvert to a State department also under political control. —I am, etc.,.

A WORKER.