The Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, July 21st., 1926. FRUITS OF OUR LOP-SIDED ECONOMIC POLICY.

Grey River Argus, 21 July 1926, Page 4

The Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, July 21st., 1926. FRUITS OF OUR LOP-SIDED ECONOMIC POLICY.

Failure heretofore in developing a self-reliant policy., througn too great a reliance upon imports, explains much of New Zealand s present economic difficulty, which the prospect of falling prices lor exports renders worse. The Government is thinking, however, rather of limiting public works as a remedy than of developing secondary industry, for which, as the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, Ihe Budget has made no provision. It has always been the Conservative policy to play into the importers’ hands. We now spend a million pounds a year on importing timber, when ten thousand workers are engaged in our own industry, who, instead of five, could, if fully employed, produce eight or nine Innes the amount imported. We do not, ol course, suppose such millers n» arc objecting locally to the present hours, wages and royalties in the industry, would encourage any Ministry to grant it the extra protection now sought, but it cannot be said that, it is a general teal of the community being exploited by industrialists which deters Lie Government from fostering’ secondary industries such as are suited to the Dominion, and which would help Hie primary producers with a wider local market. " e have to go to Australia and America for examples ol a policy. Our customs tariff is I here far more with an eye to ie\enue than protection. Incomes increased last year by about twentyeight millions, yet. taxation on incomes was reduced by nearly halt that amount, despite the. increase of wealth in the country from less than three hundred millions to alt most eight hundred millions in the

meet the national debt is sought, , therefore, less from direct taxation than from customs and other indirect forms of fiscal policy, so that it is the masses who have mostly to pay. The same conservative "expedient explains the addition lasi year of eleven millions to lhe national debt, towards the reduction of which less than three i millions was devoted, lest the I wealthy might object to doing their share. At. the present rate, | the debt, will double itself every I generation. Jt has increased in a decade by seventy millions apart from war and soldier settlement I expenditure, which latter went into the wealthy landowners’ bank balances,' whilst, the Government has since written down the value of the second grade lands they sold by no less than two and a

half millions, and will yet renew I. that process. AVe are now paying ten millions yearly in interest, and where will the extra interest come from when during the next seven years about ninety millions worth of loans have to be renewed at higher interest rates? If we do not generate industries to maintain a larger population and increase production, we may be found stalling off Shylock as desperately as France to-day, with the possessors of fat, bank balances crying out for a New Zealand Mussolini! Six millions worth of motor ears were last year imported, and the users had to pay a large sum in duty thereon, while our own manufactures in the motor industry were worth only about a million. We imported last year half as much wheat as was grown in the country, and over a quarter of the coal iised was imported also. Wc grow a deal of wool, but our imports of woollen goods were last, year ■ worth well over three millions; I we imported half the leather we

used; and boots alone to Ihe value of a million. The Leader of the Opposition, criticising the. abovementioned features of our economic position, made a plea for the establishment of more industries that would employ many hundreds of thousands, which, with an equalising of the taxation burden in accordance with the capacity of each class to. pay, would undoubtedly rectify our past mistakes ill economic policy very considerably.