BANKING POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 8

BANKING POLICY

LABOUR'S PLANS

DEFINED BY MR. M CKEEN

The intention of the Labour Government to extend the banking and currency facilities of this country with the object of bringing about a better distribution of wealth among the people was announced by Mr. R. McKeen, Labour candidate for Wellington South, when speaking at Newtown last evening. "We want more banking facilities in this country," he said, "and we have decided that we are going to extend the control of banking through the State —to control the currency of the nation in such a way as to give us control of the distribution of the goods in the country. "Banking is a financial matter and should be in the hands of the people— not in the hands of the private joint stock companies." Turning to the question of prices, Mr. McKeen asked: How did prices fall? Was-it the same unseen power that pushed them down? "No," he went on, "it is the power and the control of the bankers throughout the world. Prices do not oscillate from day to day of their own accord. They go up and down because they are forced up and down by the monopoly which controls credit and currency. "We intend to see that the currency and credit system will be a vehicle for the distribution of the wealth of the community for the welfare of the community." •