Grey River Argus TUESDAY, November 10th, 1931. ELECTION ISSUES.

Grey River Argus, 10 November 1931, Page 4

Grey River Argus TUESDAY, November 10th, 1931. ELECTION ISSUES.

The protracted delay in naming election day is by the Coalition press .now acknowledged at last to i be due, as we some time ago suggested, to a rebellion in the ranks of the very electors upon whom the party leaders expected to impose their dictatorship. All the claptrap about seeking a safer financial footing for the country than that to which the Coalition itself, either in whole or in part, has in past years laid down, is turning out in many electorates to be by no means such palateable electioneering “dope” as either United or Reform supporters are apt to swallow without a murmur. Thus we have now the open admission that the fixing of the election date has been superseded by an atempt to “fix” such constituencies as show the disposition to outlaw the Coalition. However, the number of these is apparently on the increase,

Timaru being the latest addition, along with Temuka. No doubt electors are suspicious of the Coalition tactics, which reveal a desire to distract attention from New Zealand conditions altogether, and the growing distress as well as the utter inequality of financial sacrifice, and to fasten the public mind instead upon such extraneous matters as the elections in the Old Country. Every day has disclosed some new scheme on the part of the Government to exploit the labouring and wage-earning masses, and at the same time to put all of the resources of the country at the disposal of the owning and employing classes in the coming years. The latest instance is the menace to certain workers in private employ whom the new relief scheme to subsidise works on private property is calculated to displace with cheaper labour. The projected attack on industrial agreements, and the general offensive which the employers have prepared against all wage rates are alleged to be part of the plan to recover a better financial footing, but for whom is this footing to be better? Not for those who live entirely by their lobour. but for those whose incomes are derived from the product of the labour of others! And it is even questionable if the generality of business people stand to gain any more than the working farmer. The

Government has had a certain number of academic economists propagating the idea that the welfare of New Zealand is now the same thing as the lowering of the workers’ standard of living. The bankers have loaded the dice against every other interest to favour the exporter, and yet taking, say the case of meat, much more than half of the production of the Dominion is consumed within the Dominion. It is not to the interest of the farmer to lower purchasing power within the country any more than in the oversea market, whereas the academic solution of the present depression propagated on behalf of the Coalition is precisely to lessen the spending power of the largest section of the population. The eighty thousand farmers of New Zealand are told that the only production which means anything for the national income is what goes overseas, but they are not reminded that trade is reciprocal, and that we must buy back something in return for what we export. If the workers of New Zealand continue to be prevented from purchasing from the Old Country the market there must continue to decline, so that be the exchange premium ever so high, the exporter must be an eventual loser. All over the Dominion business people realise that their losses are due largely to the lessened spending power of the working class, and the prices of meat, butter, wool, and other commodities produced and sold within the country are all lessened thereby. Neither farmer, manufacturer, wholesaler nor retailer can escape the fact that low wages mean lower prices and lessened turnover. The end of the session has seen even a couple of Government followers protest against the prevalent policy of discriminating against the lower paid people and in favour of the hgiher-paid ones in the case of of State departments, where the heads are offered fat superannuation rates on top of fat salaries and bonuses, whilst the lowest-' paid, are having their retiring allowances pared to the bone. This process is the very essence of the policy which is being vaunted as the pathway to a sounder financial footing for the Dominion, but in truth it is the road to degradation and spoliation for the great majority, whatever the advantakes at their expense that it may be designed to confer hereafter upon those who are already comparatively wealthy. Let nobody be fooled by the fact that the attack on awards has been hidden until after the election, and likewise the idea of increasing the taxation on wages and salaries alone! In the estimation of the present regime, a sound financial footing means rates of interest and profit that are usurious and exorbitant. One of the reasons why there are so many Independent candidates is that it is recognised that this country is paying too great a proportion of its taxation away in the form of unearned incomes to money-lenders. The Labour Party has stood out from the start for equality of sacrifice, and the answer to that plea which the other parties have given is the formation of their coalition. There is nobody who does not wish to see the financial and trading situation improve as quickly as possible, but there are a very great many who challenge the contenion that a wholesale lowering of the living standard among the grea majority is to be regarded as a recovery either financial, economic or any other wise. It is indeed just the thing to prevent a real recovery and to render the depression largely a permanent one. The motto indeed which the Coalition is attempting to foist upon the masses in New Zealand at present is one which is too foolish for words, and the nearest phrase, by which it can be given expression sesms to be this: Live horse and you will get grass!