Grey River Argus FRIDAY, February 19th, 1932. STILL NO LEAD.

Grey River Argus, 19 February 1932, Page 4

Grey River Argus FRIDAY, February 19th, 1932. STILL NO LEAD.

New Zealand is facing a sub-J stantial deficit this year; revenue is falling below the estimates; out of the 24 millions of expenditure ten millions goes to the money-lenders, and nearly eight millions goes in permanent appropriations ; and the retrenchment policy has already been put in hand. The outlook is therefore far from good. Yet the Government is not taking the people into its confidence. It is, in fact, doing no more than to mark time. It is waiting for two Commissions to find it a new financial policy. It asked for a blank cheque, and having- gotten it, the only result as yet is a blank where there ought to be a policy. The external debt is obviously worrying the Ministry, and it has yet to face up to the possibility of a moratorium proving necessary. Any pre-election talk of interest readjustment was tabooed. If the taboo is now lifted, the Commissions will be given the whole “credit” for it, because the politicians have as their chief use for the Commissions the role of scapegoats. A while ago, the idea of the coming session being more than a process of stamping “0.K.” upon whatever policy the Administration furnished was de- ; cried. Now, however, there are a great many who are losing confidence in the Government, and are welcoming the idea of its proposals being subjected to rigid examination and criticism. The drift is more marked than it has ever been. The so-called economy policy is being viewed in a new light, because it has been coincident with such financial retrogression that several sections of the community, quite apart from the workers, are at war with each other as to which shall be given special treatment. The exporters are on a ramp for a rise in exchange, which the importers and other urban interests now regard with anxiety, and the utility of which to any great industry or business they strenuously question. Meantime, the Government leaves the whole problem in the melting pot, delegating its job to others who are told to hunt up a policy in a few weeks. A halving of wage rates is the prescription of some capitalists, with the. abolition of preference to unionists, and virtually of arbitration in industry, in the anticipation that strife is bound to result in a gain for the employers generally. It is a time for the wokers to stand together, especially when the evil effects of , wage-cutting, sacking, and poverty have begun to show a great many traders these expedients are the very

caricature of a remedy. Retrenchment, however absolute, is by the economists admitted to be at best a palliative, not a solution, of the Dominion’s difficulty. The enormous burden of debt is the greatest of all the handicaps. In many directions taxation has been taken to the limit on account of that burden. Even the local bodies are concerned as to their resources in this respect, and there is now the suggestion that to 'avert individual default the local bodies ought to pool their debts. There is procrastination and with it the danger of an eventual panic which might work more loss and harm in a brief space of time than even heroic remedies taken in anticipation. This Government was going to do great things when seeking votes from the electors, but its chief activity since seems to be that of dodging full responsibility for whatever policy it may now be contemplating. Although it met yesterday to prepare a sessional, programme, the Cabinet did not make anything known of it. That is doubtless the blank cheque policy being carried out to the letter. There is only one policy that would make this Government a happy family, one indeed heretofore madly exploited until the clay of reckoning has come, one which is no longer possible. That is to borrow a lot more money. Denied that, they are derelict.