NO MANDATE

Evening Star, Issue 22326, 30 April 1936, Page 5

NO MANDATE

MR COATES’S CHALLENGE INTENTIONS MASKED FROM ELECTORS That the Government, masking its intentions when appealing to the -electors, was actually carrying out a policy of Socialism of production, distribution, and exchange, was a point strongly made by Mr Coates in the course of a strenuous attack on the BilL He advised the Minister to alter the title to.“ Primary Products Pirating Bill,” and reading from Mr Nash’s pre-election explanation of guaranteed prices, declared that there was not a word in it suggesting that Labour intended, if it became the Government, to become the owner of the whole of the exported primary products of the Dominion. Labour Members: Oh, yesl Mr Coates ; The Government had no mandate to acquire the whole of the producers’ products. What, he asked, did the term “ guaranteed price ” mean? To the average individual it meant that the farmer would be guaranteed a price, and if that was exceeded in the world markets he would get the balance. It was never intended that the balance should go to the Crown. The guaranteed price was not fixed, and it came as a shock to the whole of the primary producers that their produce would be the property of the State, and that the State \v;jld fix the price they would get. Mr Savage: Who fixes the price now ? Mr Coates: “The world’s markets.” It had been suggested in Labour pamphlets that price fluctuations were the work of clever manipulators, but was that true? It was well known that price fluctuations were the result of supply and demand, and one of the Government’s problems would be, if it fixed too low a price, that production would be depressed. He wanted to know whether the plan to buy all products meant engaging in a ' bulk barter system with other countries. Did the country, when it voted for Labour realise that it was entering on the first step to socialisation of the means of production, distribution, r.nd exchange?

The exchange aspect had already been socialised by the legislation placed on the Statute Book this session. Labour Members: Hear, hear.

Mr Coates referred to New Zealand’s pioneer settlers, who came here to get clear of strife and hampering conditions for the individual, relying on their initiative. Yet within three generations there was a Labour Government which said “ No, the results of your enterprise and energy are not yours at all. They are to become the property of the Government at a price it will fix, and in no other way.” New Zealand was embarking on an untried experiment. Mr Sullivan: You said in this House that the old system was bankrupt. Mr Coates: “ No, I never said that.” However, the Bill was the thin end of the wedge, with a maul the size of a house behind it to drive home Socialism, though the country never gave a mandate for Socialistic experiment. Government Members: Yes, overwhelming. Mr Coates retorted that Labour got 45 per cent, of the votes, yet it never tola the country it intended to follow the principles of Socialism to a point where property would he entirely owned by the Crown. Was the initiative of the manhood and womanhood of New Zealand, ho asked, to be destroyed by such legislation? There was Labour laughter, prompting Mr Contes to retort that such interjections got nowhere. The former Government left the country in a post tion in which it was the envy of other countries, and a good job of work was done.