MEETING THE BILL

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 10

MEETING THE BILL

GOVERNMENT'S POLICY

"VALOUR OF IGNORANCE" (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 15. More than 300 Canterbury supporters of the New Zealand National Party, including representatives of all the electorates in Canterbury and on the West Coast, this evening endorsed the action of the recent confcrence at Wellington which formed the party, and undertook "enthusiastically to ' work for its success at the next General Election." The meeting was addressed by the Leader of the Opposition (the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) and by Mr. S. G. Holland and Mr. H. S. S. Kyle, mambers of Parliament.

Mr. Forbes said the utmost unanimity prevailed among members of the conference at Wellington which set up a permanent National Party. Under the Coalition it had not been possible to obtain the same organisation. He spoke of the cconomy measures the Coalition had to introduce, and all members of the Government were aware that this did not make the Government popular. However, they believed no right-thinking citizens would have wished the Government to sidestep what was done as a national duty. The electors had declared that they did not like economy and did not like the people who put cconomy into effect.

"Now we have a party in power which is prepared to go to the other extreme," said Mr. Forbes. "It is prepared to spend—'the sky's the limit.' It is not concerned with the question who is to provide the money.*lts first consideration is whether there is a demand for expenditure—the cost comes after."

With its control of the Reserve Bank the Government had the power of inflation and control of the currency, Mr. Forbes continued. It had undertaken a programme of extensive public works and it had bought all the dairy produce in the Dominion.

"We have come up against a state of affairs which we could never have dreamed of," said Mr. Forbes. "We cannot have things which cost money without having to pay for them, and the bill for all this will have to be met. Without setting myself up as a prophet, I can say safely that income tax is going to get a pretty good whack. These men claim that they at least have courage. There is such a thing as the valour of ignorance, and it is easy to conceive their rushing in and doing things that must be disastrous to the country."

The Government, he said, had no regard for cost and no regard for consequences.