Grey River Argus FRIDAY, November 27th, 1931. COALITION CLAP TRAP!

Grey River Argus, 27 November 1931, Page 4

Grey River Argus FRIDAY, November 27th, 1931. COALITION CLAP TRAP!

. Very poor indeed is the compliment which is paid the intellibence of New Zealanders when the Coalition expect to be taken entirely on trust, and face the country minus even a passable apology for a policy. They rely entirely upon scaremongering’, catch-cries, and misrepresentation of the policy of Labour. But in

few, if any, electorates has this presumption gone to such lengths as in Westland, where we have the Coalition ■ candidate’s local press apologist so audacious to make such assertions as the following:—(1) “There is no doubt the Coalition Government will win.” (2) “If Westland electors use their votes solely from the district viewpoint, they are to a certain . extent betraying .a

trust.” (3) “What any particular man may do for the constituency is not so important as what is his national policy.” (4) “It would, ‘ pay ’ to elect Mr Grecuslade. ” We would liketo know whom it would pay to elect a candidate who regarded the district as a secondary consideration, and especially a. candidate whose “national policy” is made a verysecondary consideration to his interest in an oversea country. Mr Greenslade has attempted to belittle Labour’s policy by suggesting it is an impossibility to secure what he terms Ihc “sinews of war” to carry it into effect. He seems to lack Labour’s realisation that the present hand-to-mouth policy cannot go on indefinitely, and that reproductive work must be found for all willing workers. The money can be raised in New Zealand. The existing banking laws give all the power that is necessary to enable industry to get going. Before the Inter-Party Committee a representative of the Associated Banks definitely stated that for justifiable objects the raising within the Dominion of £5,000,000 or £6,000.000 would have no greater deflation effect on the currency than the raising of a similar amount in Britain. He could promise the cooperation of the Associated Banks in raising an internal loan for approved industrial purposes. Is not such a constructive policy preferable to what the Coalition Government has in mind, namely, further reductions in wages ami the equivalent of the abolition of the arbitration system: The money is in the country. The following figures from the New Zealand Official Year Book show honour private wealth has grown: Private wealth, 1929, £725,000.000; private wealth, 1914, £285.500,000; increase £440,000,000. In the face of this, Mr Greenslade asks the electors to believe that nothing can be done unless wages are cut and the social and educational services are slaughtered. There is a vast accumulation of money in the bankers’ hands on fixed deposit, and the bankers’ spokesman already quoted knows wdl that a goodly sum from that, accumulation can be made available on terms profitable alike to the depositors, the bankers and the Dominion. The Coalition has taken authority to borrow up to eight millions on short term conditions, for which it is prepared to pay oversea capitalists higher interest than would be necessary for longer terms acommodation within the Dominion. There are also taxation resources. The Government has indeed “gone the limit” in taxing wages, although it may not think so, and come again with an additional twopence in the pound, but here are significant figures: In 1921-22 the amount of income tax imposed on a total of £38.246,000 of assessable incomes was £6,266.ooo,whereas in 1929-30 the total of the assessable incomes had risen to £65,380,000. but the income tax paid was only £3,322,000. Mr Coates has de--1 clared:—“lt Is safe to say that 30 per cent, of the farmers are virtually bankrupt, another 30 per eent. are solvent, and the remaining 40 per -cent, are in a shaky condition. ’ ’ It seems to be only, too true therefore that what the farmers have got to-dhy is not the freehold, but the mortgagehold, -which is undoubtedly the fruit of the so-called freehold policy enacted by his own Party in 1912. The Coalition has nothing to say about the extent to which speculators and gamblers have worsened the situation. It is the interest on those mortgages which is the ruin of the farmers, but the Coalition leaves the mortgagee the whip hand. In 1912 the capital value of land was £315,503,000, and the mortgage liability was £88,500,000: but in 1928, while the capital value was £618,264,000, the mortgage liability had risen to £302,500,000. Thus Ihe mortgage liability grew by 242 per cent., whilst the capital value increase was 92 per cent. The farmers in 1928 paid ten millions in interest out of the nineteen millions paid altogether upon mortgages in the Dominion. For tins slate of things, which has now issued an such a terrific tribute to the moneyed interests, the responsibility lies with the course of policy which it is the object of the Coalition and of its candidates to perpetuate ! Contrast the foregoing with the following,:—The interest bearing deposits in the Associated Banks of ■ the Dominion have increased from £20,941,662 in 1925 to £34,432,- I 517 six years later. Why should, 1 there in the face of that tendency, : have been in nine years a ' lessening of between four and five ■ millions in the proceeds of in- I come tax? This latest remission < of graduated land tax has meant ‘ a gift to six wealthy land-owners I of nearly £15,000 per annum. ’ Contrast, that with the wages tax 1 under which a girl earning 10s , weekly has to pay, and a woman J

with an income of £240 that is not earned has not to pay I Even the school children are being made to pay. On our 216,698 primary school children, two and a-half millions is yearly laid out, or £ll 14s per head, whereas Britain’s outlay per child is £l5, and now our system is to be starved. The other side of the picture which the Coalition paints of an inability to rehabilitate the country is its aim to lower wages. That was the object, of the immigration policy, under which about 60,000 were brought, of whom many are to-day sorry they came. The result has been fifty thousand registered unemployed, a result which big employers anil wealthy squatters have decided to exploit to the utmost so as to lower wages and worsen conditions. The idea is frankly to run New Zealand industry on a new basis of low wages, and in the coal industry here there are indications that this is the plan at the moment when importations are. encouraged without a protest from the employers. From the standpoint, of national policy the Labour Party has a coherent, definite, and far-sighted policy, but it makes for distributive justice, and this is represented by vested interests as being inimical to all because it threatens to spoil their plans for a servile State. Such misrepresentation is on all fours with the local Coalitionist press plea for the electors to ignore district interests, the work of the Parliamentary representative and also his capacity. Fantastical talk about pleasing some absentee capitalist or other is thrown in as makeweight, but we feel justified in concluding that the very reasons which the Greymouth Star” yesterday suggested as ones against the merits of Mr O’Brien are just the ones that ought to commend him most strongly to each and every elector in Westland. His fault in the “Star’s” eyes apparently is that he has been only too successful as a district representative.