STATE ADVANCES.

Grey River Argus, 13 October 1922, Page 4

STATE ADVANCES.

Nobody but is with the Government in the housing advances made in connection with repatriation; but the benefits should not stop short there. It should be no disqualification to happen not to have been a repatriate! soldier. As regards State advances generally, a Labour member pointed out how Reform supporters tried to spread the idea in his electorate that until a Reform member was elected advances would be curtailed. That talk is, of course, largely electioneering, but it is undoubted that the State Advances Department, through congestion and other faults on the Government's part, has not been nearly the asset to the country that it used to be. It is only now, just before the election, that a couple of millions are being put into the Department for distribution. The Government believes in a form of socialism if it be to help those farmers who handle a good deal of money. When the Labour Part} pointed out in a debate on the State Advances Amendment Bill, how far the Government has fallen short of its

promises in the matter of advances for housing, Mr Massey said he thought their speeches were not interesting. Quite a good defenc-e, in the Reform Party’s estimate. Moneys, said Mr. Massey, were advanced under the Municipal Act for cool storage, fruit preserving, and repatriation. To insist upon housing advances just now was not good form. It would have been better to cut short the debate and go home! Some people are becoming doubtful, however, of where they should go to find a home. The Members of Parliament do not, of course, come under this category; but they should not ignore it in favour of cool storage and preserving fruit for people who do not live in this country at all. It is a fact that hardly one in every three houses in the Dominion to-day is free from mortgage of such encumbrance, and more farms are mortgaged than houses. So it is easy to see where this two millions, and another couple to follow, are likely to go. The 1 money bags” will get them in the long run. If there is to-day a shortage of ready money in this country, the Government is to blame, for its whole policy has tended to tic money up. The facts speak for themselves. It is useless putting new wino into old bottles, however. The only remedy is a new administration that will not exclusively study and conserve the interests of the very wealthy.