BANKING SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 63, 11 September 1943, Page 5

BANKING SYSTEM

DEM.-LAB.'S FIRST JOB

MR. TEECE'S CAMPAIGN

The Democratic Labour Party's .candidate for Wellington South, Private C. S. Teece, addressed an audience of over 60 people at St. Thomas's Hall, Newtown, last night, and was given an attentive hearing. Aircraftman R. Cox presided. . . Criticising the reduction of the six weeks' leave promised by Mr. Fraser to soldier candidates to four weeks, without pay, Private Teece said that soldier candidates' wives might at least have been allowed to collect their children's allowances, especially as there were members of Parliament, Major Skinner, for instance, who were voluntarily in uniform collecting two lots of pay. ■ ■ It had been stated that he was never interested in the Labour movement until he joined the Democratic Party, but he had supported the Labour candidate in 1935 and 1938, and it was only after he became convinced that the only way its policy could be given effect to was on the lines of Mr. J. A. Lee's advocacy that he. had joined his party. . ■.-., . . When the Labour Party got rid of J. A. Lee it blew out its brains. A number of people left the party because it had failed to live up to its election pledges and formed the Democratic Labour Party. Its policy was that the banks should be owned by the people. If the banks had £1,000,000 by way of deposit, they lent up to £10,000,000 by lending their credit. If the Government Budget was for £36,000,000 it meant that Government securities to that amount had found their way into private New Zealand banks. Britain's population had doubled; its indebtedness had increased 12 times, under the present banking system. In 1860 New Zealand borrowed £77,000 to fight, the Maori War; 81 years later £277,000 had been paid in interest upon that sum. If elected his party's first job would be'to start on the banking system. The war could not be carried on to a successful conclusion on the old lines of finance, and there could be no rehabilitation for soldiers until the* system was changed.

FOOLING THE PUBLIC.

It was said that the cost of living had not risen more than 9 per cent. Perhaps it had not, but people were paying along another route. It was said that the price of sugar, had not risen, but everyone knew that it had. The price of bread had not been allowed to go up, but the pound loaf had been cut down to 14 ounces. It was only another way of trying to fool the people. "We believe that one of the greatest problems of Hew Zealand today is man-power," said the candidate. "If something is not done about it in the near future there will be an industrial collapse in this country. The Government is taking men out of industry and knocking the props from under it. Goods are becoming scarcer and scarcer, and every day the shortage of man-power is causing prices to rise. I think that in the near future, if this Government is returned, it will introduce a wage tax which will affect the working man most of all, especially the man on the lower paid level. * If we were elected we would have an immediate man-power revision. Men would be returned to the mines, where: they should go. We would return the Division from the Middle East, not a section of it, but the whole Division, and if possible put them back into industry. We would, not put them back into the war zone until every firstgrade, man in New Zealand had had his turn. We believe our battle is in the Pacific, and any fighting the Division got would, if we had our way, be there. I believe that every man in camp should be allowed a chance to continue his education, particularly in industry. We think that boys under 21 should not go overseas, but if the present Government goes back they will be sending boys of 18 and 19 overseas. If they do that they should give them a vote." i

REHABILITATION AND HOUSING

It would be impossible to rehabilitate the soldier unless the whole of New Zealand was rehabilitated. The only way to solve the building programme was to build. Money should be made available to the people at 1£ per cent, from State banks. The Democratic Labour Party would make money available not 'only to the State, but to private individuals, soldiers particularly, to those who wished to start businesses, and also to groups of employees who wished to take a share in existing or new manufacturing concerns. The best immigrants were New Zealand children, but he would be willing to encourage the sending out here of orphans from England, who could be brought up in New Zealand ways and ideas. There should be a "weekly wage" to mothers of at least 10s per child, irrespective of the parents' income.

Civil servants were the lowest paid in the country, he said. Postmen, he believed, were getting £4 8s a week, while wages on .the railways were small. Where a superannuated man vyas retained owing to present conditions he should receive his superannuation as well as his salary, or be allowed to go off the job. There were men in the railway workshops not being paid tradesmen's wages. He believed some were getting from 3d to 6d less than tradesmen's pay. He criticised the present system whereby those who were paying into some other scheme were debarred from social security sickness benefits. There were many railway and corporation workers who were not getting a penny out of it. Discussing the cost of Mr. Wash's services at Washington, he said he believed that it was something like £2000, apart from extras, which were probably some £5000 a year. .Meanwhile, he was pledging New Zealand goods at 1938 prices, while in New Zealand we were paying 1943 prices. President Roosevelt had thrown light on lend-lease when he said that nations receiving it were expected to repay the United States as far. as they could; although not necessarily in dollars. It appeared that countries receiving lendlease would have to pay in full. New Zealand soldiers were good soldiers, but they were not receiving as good treatment as other soldiers. The increase of 6d a day was insufficient. Soldiers, to equal civilians, should get 2s a day more. Our men received only one greatcoat, and they had to use it as a blanket, especially in places like Waiouru. No man could look spruce in a coat which he had slept in. Americans had more than one coat, and W.A.A.C.s had two or three, including oilskins. He could not understand why the men had no. heaters in Waiouru.

Instancing cases of military waste, the candidate said that £15,000 was spent on a boot-repairing shop at one camp. There was waste at every meal at Waiouru, and he had seen butter burnt in the cookhouse furnaces. Whatever butter was left on the table after a meal, and sometimes the half-pound pats were merely opened and started on, it was taken by men on fatigue to the kitchen, and when the fire died down it was put on to save firewood, though the paper was always taken off it first for some other reason. There were three messrooms in each area, and eight areas in the camp, and the total waste of butter daily must have been considerable. A cut loaf was just dumped. He had on one occasion passed out 16 vehicles to meet one train, and all the personnel and equipment carried either way could have been carried by three. As far as manpower was concerned, a grade one married man had been kept as a batman, while a jockey, for no particular reason, was released. It was wrong for girls to be driving trucks, while fit men were being used as batmen.,