Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1938. CABINET GOES CANNY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 150, 28 June 1938, Page 10

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1938. CABINET GOES CANNY

A significant feature of the Parliamentary recess, which ends today with the opening of Parliament, has been the extreme care with which the Government has concealed its hand. Mr. Nash has lent the weight of his financial authority to a great experiment, the guaranteed price. At the outset this was accepted by most people as being an adventure risky but sincere, and not mere "playing politics." But when people ask the questions which naturally arise, such as whether the proceeds of the guaranteed price are to meet the deficits as well as provide the surpluses, they can obtain no answer. Anyone would think that responsibility for deficits would be treated by a price-guaranteeing Government as a first principle, to be fixed immutably. That the Labour Party did indeed regard it as an immutable first principle is proved by the fact that what Mr. Fraser calls the "announced policy" of the Labour Party was clear on the point. But since 1935 something has happened to put this first principle of priceguaranteeing under a cloud of doubt. Does that fact reflect political sincerity or only party politics? If the summoning of Parliament has any meaning, it should mean light on this and other dark spots. More direct powers of interrogation are available in session than in recess—interrogation that can be backed by criticism. If the spirit of the sincere radical reformer still exists, Ministers will be only too glad to give their policy-features more definiteness. Is there any obvious sincerity in a Government which suspends its "announced policy" to the extent of becoming silent on one of its first principles at a time when a General Election is pending and when farmers have their eye on the hand which feeds— but which also conceals with care the manner of next year's feeding? The spirit of reform does not practise concealment for electioneering purposes; it is also not a sectional spirit, feeding a multitude of small farmers while saying nothing about other farmers and other industries. Therefore the question forces itself: Is price-guaranteeing a good system, and, if so, should it be restricted to dairy farmers? In 1935 Labour would have repudiated any such restriction. But today, on all questions of extending the system, Ministers are still as silent as they are about the ownership of Dairy Account deficits. The new session of Parliament will have some meaning if these recess secrets can be divulged in the ardent reforming ' spirit of 1935. If Cabinet has gone canny on its first instalment of guaranteed prices, and has become silent on the extension which a sound economic principle would surely call for, j there cannot be a monetary reason for such reticence, for the public works programme flourishes and outdoes all records. During the recess Ministers could not be communicative on the subject of the guaranteed price, but they could take a public work like the five miles, five years Wairarapa tunnel in their stride. There is also a certain demand for a full-size traffic tunnel instead of a singletrack railway tunnel, and if this were listened to the whole project from the standpoint of expenditure, as well as railway policy, would be profoundly altered. Mr. Sample's buoyancy concerning public works contrasts with Mr. Parry's plodding on that heavy task which has hitjierto beaten all Governments—local government reform. Mr. Parry has made a sincere effort, and is entitled to sympathy. Public works are vote, winners, but local government reform makes many enemies and few friends. Public works are excellent material for publicity, but one suspects that the local government reformer meets many obstacles that .cannot see the light. Parliament in this final session may be able to induce Mr. Parry to explain his pilgrim's progress. Mr. Semple will be heard from without difficulty. The big business of the session is of course Social Security and the Budget—which go together—and perhaps the Education Bill. Both the Social Security measure and the Education measure have undergone a recess Committee stage in their process of manufacture, and the form of their presentation to Parliament may be altered accordingly. Social Security has an extensive and not yet fullyexplained effect on the Consolidated and on the Employment Promotion Funds; and the displacements in both directions are so extensive that Budgeting seems to be entering upon a new era. This will not be fully reflected in the 1938 Budget, because, though the Social Security Bill will no doubt be passed this session, it will operate in next financial year. But reflection of the new conditions should be visible in the 1938 Budget to a considerable extent, because a foundation must be laid at once for vastly greater commitments. Reallocation of existing tax-revenue will have a bearing on the new taxation problems of the immediate future. People who vote in November should have in mind what is in the 1938 Budget, and also what is likely to be in the Budget of 1939. The hush that lies over Dairy Account deficits is nothing to the silence that surrounds ihc land titles of new settlement (if any). Mr. Langstone, as Minister of Lands, made a speech about Easter that seemed to say good-bye to the freehold. More recently lie made a speech I which was apparently intended to

convey to farmers that llieir land would not be taken from them, but we searched the specch vainly for the word freehold. And yet there was a time, not so long ago, when General Elections turned not on guaranteed prices, but on rural tenures, and when the freehold made and unmade Governments. The farmer may forget all about this while watching the clouded evolution of the guaranteed price, but sooner or later the political relations of Labour and the farmer will be governed not so much by the things that are in the mindj of Mr. Nash as by those that are in the mind of Mr. Langstone. All this, however, may be part not of the November story, but of another later conflict. The silence that was broken (for a moment) by Mr. Langstone speaks for itself.