LEADER OF OPPOSITION

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 February 1939, Page 7

LEADER OF OPPOSITION

GOVT. POLICY CRITICISED

SPENDTHRIFT EXTRAVAGANCE

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, February 3

“To make it obvious to every man and women in New Zealand. that the Dominion conferences of importers was not simply a political manoeuyie aimed at discrediing the Labour Government, the National Party has deliberately withheld comment on the restrictions recently imposed,” said the Hon. Adam Hamilton, Leader of the Opposition to-day. “Now that the business community has stated its • case, and now that a considered answer has been given by the Government, no case can be prejudiced by some plain speaking by me. “There is no pleasure in seeing a prophecy or disaster fulfilled, but it is my duty as Leader of the Opposition to state bluntly that the present financial crisis, coming as it does 'With, remarkable swiftness' after three years of the greatest prosperity, was forecast by the National Party ever since the Government took office in 1935. it is no easy task to persuade a people-enjoying temporary benefits that trouble lies ahead, but that task I have never shirked, nor has it been shirked by any member of my party. Now all thinking people must be alarmed at the Government’s desperate expedient—disguised as policy — which, it hoped, will extricate it. from its self-made difficulties. This crisis was not inevitable. The Labour Government produced it, just as it was prophesied that they would. The one reason why the Government has been able to stave off the day of reckoning so long is because of the legacy left by the National Party—more’ than £40,000,000 in sterling funds in London, and various' Government departments in credit. Those savings have dwindled to a mere nothing and those credits have been dissipated and squandered. The l Reserve Bank has been drawn upon to such an extent, that the danger signal has been hoisted. A crisis is upon us, and is must develop inevitably.

STRANGLING PRODUCTION

“Labour policy has intensified the crisis by strangling production. Even export income is falling. The drastic steps the Government is taking to-day are to deal with effects and not causes. To remedy the effects there must be a reversal of the present Socialist policy.* To restore confidence business must thrive and employment must be productive. Already men and women have been thrown out of employment. If the Government continues on its course more and more will be forced out. Those still in work will have to pay more to keep those who are unemployed. The bubble is then burst, and the standard of living forced down. “To reverse this movement the. war between capital and labour, nurtured by the Labour Government, must end. The employee must realise that his interests are irrevocably bound up with those of his employer, and vice versa. Every facility must be given to capital, both inside and outside New Zealand. Without absolute cooperation on sound lines 1 there can be no foundation of new industries or expansion of those of to-day. There has been’ no sudden emergency. “To-day the Labour crop of spendthrift extravagance, sown successively for three seasons, is- being harvested. The National Party always attacked the Socialist policy proclaimed by the Government as ‘spending its way to prosperity—onward and upward.’ The Government would not listen. The prophecy is fulfilled. The Government seeks to save its life by desperate expenditure and the people are suffering already. They will suffer more. In three years of exceptional prosperity this Government has run through all the available funds in New Zealand and more, and has so depleted the London funds that the Government itself has to declare a state of emergency! “I cannot believe that this crisis was not forseen hy the Government and I am certain that the people of New Zealand will not be ready to forgive- a Government w’hcih only a few months ago explicitly denied that there was any possibility of such a state of emergency being at hand. The price of success at the. election unquestionably impaired political integrity. The people will pay for years. The Government has not been frank with the electors. It has 1 claimed that it could suspend or modify accepted economic la.ws. To-day it is 1 in much the same position at King Canute and the tide, except that the ancient king announced before he faced the ocean that he held no mystic power to prevent the inevitable. The Government lias spent until the larder is bare, and to-day the Government is- instituting an emergency policy of scraping and saving to repair the position—just as any private citizen would have to do who’ faced a similar emergency.

“DELIBERATELY CREATED” “It is distressing to'think, however, that the crisis is deliberately created. The Government has attempted to give- reasons for the crisis, in an endeavour to shelve part of the blame at least, if possible. New Zealand cannot be content to see falling export returns, and everyone must know that, apart from lower prices, the principal rc.asbns for the decline are hich farming costs and the shortage of' productive farm labour. The Government itself has contributed to the crisis by its huge, expenditure on public, works, which has assisted to swell the total amount of imports. 1 repeat that there is no joy in harping on a catastrophe, but it is high lime the people of New Zealand thought in terms of prevention rather than quack remedies in politics as well as in many other aspects of living. Rising costs must be reduced. The thousands of men employed to-day on unproductive works must he absorbed into productive industry. “No import restrictions will increase exports, nor will this Government find a way to pay its legions of employees without resorting to inflation, and that is the preface to a major catastrophe, in which all sections of ihe community must be engulfed. Men and women are now being thrown out of employment. Their anxiety and their personal problems are not satisfied by talk, in a so-call-ed economic theory, that they may at

some future date be re-absorbed into some industry, when they . have already devoted most of their life to building up a trade or business in another vocation.

“This Labour Government that has proclaimed its practical virtues is actually no better than we originally al]eg{.d—it is a, Government based on Socialist theories and ideals in which practicability plays no fundamental part. The results must be bitter fruit to the man and woman in the street This control of imports exchange is the first effort to stem the tide of cause and effect, but. there must be more equally unpleasant, expedients to follow.

“The London funds may be temporarily strengthened, but at what cost to the standard of living of the bulk of our people? As ‘cost’ is not a word that greatly concerns the Labour Government, little sympathy can be expected. The National Party still calls for sane thought and is still very much in the fight for sound government and freedom for all.”