ECONOMIC GAS-MASKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 46, 23 August 1938, Page 8

ECONOMIC GAS-MASKS

Unlike his friend of the next-door constituency, Mr. Fraser does not look forward to a dirty election campaign in Wellington Central. He sees no reason why there should be a dirty campaign—nor is there! The Government's actions and state- \ ments have raised issues that can! easily he kept on a logical level, and Mr. Fraser seems to be thej Minister best fitted to keep them there, for he is not given to substituting assertion for argument, nor does he try to sidestep legitimate criticism by pretending that it is merely destructive. As a Scot, he is not easily brought to a definite commitment —and this was made clear enough in his Roseneath address last' night —but when he reaches a commitment he stands on it. He told his Roseneath audience that "Labour could * point to its achievements in the last three years, and a vote in its favour would be construed as an instruction to go on." But go on where? He did not say. Then the magic word "insulation" came into the story, but only to be toyed with, not explained. Doesj insulation mean, or ..does it place radical reliance on ; price-fixing and guaranteeing of prices? Mr. Fraser's remarks about guaranteed dairy prices would almost suggest that it does. But what about other factors, including import and export control? The full meaning of insulation is still left in the air. Here are the only clues that we have been able to gather: Between the fall in agricultural prices and the fall in industrial prices there would be a lag, and that was where the Labour Government's policy would be put into operation. In the event of a fall of prices on the world's markets it would see that all the governmental power of the country was used to protect the people . . . we have insulated the farmer against another depression; we have protected the dairy-farmer against a fall in overseas prices. Judging by these reported remarks of Mr. Fraser, insulation, in the case of the dairy farmer, means the price guarantee. And presumably insulation, in the case of all Governmentpaid workers, means a guarantee that their payments will not be reduced, since "there is no place for Labour in a national Government that" cuts wages." In other words, the Labour Government will maintain all prices and wages which depend on Government payments; but as these wages are only a fraction of the whole, and as these prices are possibly a still smaller fraction of the whole, what about all the other prices and wages? Since these are not paid by the Government, how will the Government maintain them, and how will they be brought into the general plan of insulation by fixation, or of insulation by any other means? What economic gas-masks will general industry wear? One might be afraid to address such questions to Mr. Savage, because he might term them destructive, or say they are "a political document" calling only for pity. But Mr. Fraser, we think, will admit that a Government's ideas about insulation should not themselves be insulated, and should be worth exposing to the light' of day. The people, including the voters, are ready to risk a shock. A Government which is "not $o foolish" as to claim power of control over world prices, but which claims that it can do things to prevent people suffering want and poverty, should surely not be backward in explaining how this is to be done, not only on the rising market of 1935-38, but on the potential falling market (with lag in price falls) to which Mr. Fraser referred at Roseneath. We do not look to Wellington Central for a dirty campaign. We would sooner look to it as a lighthouse in a period of political fog.