REHABILITATION

Grey River Argus, 15 March 1932, Page 6

REHABILITATION

THE METHOD TO PURSUE Industrial Development During his speech on the Address-in-Reply, Air H. E. Holland said: What is the method that we should pursue to rehabilitate New Zealand at this juncture? The Prime Minister as a farmer knows that right throughout this country, largely because they cannot afford to purchase fertiliser, many of the farmers are on holdings that, are far larger than is necessary. J venture to say that in almost any part of New Zealand to-day, with the application of intensive farming methods, the productive capacity of many of the holdings could bo increased and the individual holdings could be decreased in area by as much as 50 per cent. That course would make it easier for the farmers concerned and it would also make it possible to get a much larger number of men on the land.

A MILLION ACRES. It is no use attempting to deal with this problem in any two-penny-half-penny sort of a way; my personal opinion is that we should start out with a programme involving the settlement of not less than 1,000,000 acres. Suitable men from the ranks of the unemployed should be given the work of clearing and breaking in this area, under expert supervision. The co-op-eration of the Agricultural, Lands, Scientific and Industrial Research, and other Departments concerned should be invoked in this connection. When the land is ready for occupation the men who have been engaged in its preparation should be given first chance of taking it up as permanent, settlers. THE PAKIHI LANDS. The Prime Minister will know that there arc large areas of pakihi lands throughout the Dominoin that are nor now being used product iveley. I understand the total area will run into about a quarter of a million acres all told. There are 40,000 acres in the Westport district. These areas have hitherto been regarded as almost hopeless for productive purposes. However, investigations by the Agricultural Department at Addisons and by the Cawthron Institute at Sergeant’s Hill and Wood’s Farm across the Buller River from Westport have, according to Professor Easterfield, solved the problem of pakihi lands for dairy farming purposes. These thousands of acres can now be brought into productive use. Let the Government get to work with an organised effort to bring in that land. It will require the use of large supplies of superphosphate and lime. According to the statement of the Cawthron Institute scientists, the land can be successfully treated at. a cost of £6 per acre. INTEREST REDUCTIONS. Sir, I would digress to say that interest reductions must also come if the farmers arc to be helped in this country. We have proposals for wage reductions, proposals for dismissals, etc., but somehow or other the Government shies clear of the very idea of reducing interest rates throughout New Zealand despite the fact that interest reductions would help the farmers to a greater extent than any wage reduction can possibly help them. Air Wilkinson: And it will help everybody else.

Mr Holland: Yes. When this proposal first came from the Labour Party .it was denounced in almost every newspaper throughout this country as being un-British and constituting a breach of sacred contracts. The Government thinks it is justified in breaking any contract with the wage workers and the trades unions, but it will not consider breaking any contract with the collectors of interest, because that policy would be against the interests of the big financial institutions. The proposal to reduce interest, which was so unpopular when the Labour Party first voiced the idea, is now being re-echoed throughout the length and breadth of this country. Men who are capable of looking deeply into our economic problem arc convinced that, if a process of wage reductions is to be followed the inevitable corollary is a reduction of interest as well.

THE EOADING PROBLEM. Along with the problem of settling people on the land, we have a reading problem throughout New Zealand. Good roads have long since become an effective part of the economic organisation of this country, and there is scope for the employment of large numbers of men in constructing necessary roads and bridges—roads must be constructed, rivers must be bridged, if the productive organisation of New Zealand is to be brought to any high degree of efficiency and if the goods produced are to be got to economic markets. This applies particularly to the backblocks districts. OTHER INDUSTRIES. Tn addition to land settlement and reading, there are all the secondary and other industries that are waiting to be built up. The flax industry, which the hon. member for Wellington East has discussed in this House time and again, offers wide scope for the employment of hundreds of men who are disemployed at the present moment. In the coal industry, which has ben almost wrecked by the methods of those now in power, there is the possibility of full-time employment on standard wages. To-day we have whole mining townships on the verge of starvation. There are possibilities of effective development of the boot industry. Hundreds of bootmakers are now idle in our streets to-day, or doing work for which they are wholly unfitted, while millions of boots are com-

ing in from other countries. Tin. i.nni. thing applies to timber, woollen mimii facture, tobacco, iron, citrus fruil.H, and other industries. The <-hh6 1 nm trying to make is for building ll|( n,,.. whole of our industries. AFr Coates; And llu'i-e is lung oil Air Holland: Tung oil is utidotildedly another industry I hat is rapnldo of de velopment. .1. do not know very much about it, I con I ess. 'Pin. Imn. ummlmr for Christchurch Soulh may Im uldc to tell us something about it when hr conies to speak. MR FAWCETT’S STATEMENT. Coming back to primary product ion, the two right, hon. genl leiiien who an* at the head of the Government will remember a statement that was made by Mr Fawcett, the rural economic ad visor to the Department of Agricul ture, when he was before the Sperinl Economic. Committee. Mr Fawcett, showed that by the adoption of inlen sive methods we could improve both the quality and the number of our dairy herds, while increasing the out put and lowering the unit cost TRADE AGREEMENTS. Alarketing plays an important part, in connection with our primary industries, and I put it to the Prime Minister that one thing that, is needed is definite trade agreements —an agreement with Great Britain in the first, place, because Britain is our best, customer. That agreement should provide for the export to Britain of stated quantities of Now Zealand’s primary products, with a reciprocal arrangement as to our imports from the Old Country. When we have made our definite trade agreement with Great Britain, we could then turn our attention to Australia and Canada and other Dominions, and get whatever definite agreements are possible with them. We should then go further afield, and make trading with any other countries willing to enter into commercial relationships with us. This would enable us to find wider markets for our primary products. From the countries with which our agreements would be made we would take goods a surplus of which they can produce and which can not be economically produced in this conn t rv. Likewise we would send them the goods of which we have a surplus and which they cannot produce.

STABILISED PRICES FOR FARMERS. Along with those definite trad< agreements there should b° provision for a guaranteed stabilised price for primary products, based as the honourable member for Lyttelton said the other day in a newspaper interview, on k say a five-yearly or seven-yearly moving average. 1 venture to say that tin arrangeinnt of that kind would be a far better proposition for the prim •iry producers of this country than any temporary arrangement that could be made with regard to exchange or any other matter. The trouble to-day with the average farmer is that he does not know from year to year what his income is going to be. Air Forbes: Where is the money to come from? Mr Holland: That is the cry all the time—“ Where is the money to come from?” Afoney is the medium of exchange; if we produce the goods there will be no difficulty in providing tlv means of exchange; if wo keep down the production of goods wo reduce the flow of the means of exchange. DESTRUCTION OF MARKETS. We can only produce the goods profitably by making trade agreements for marketing our exportable commodities and by re-establishing purchasing power internally.

Mr Ransom: Are we not producing the goods to-day? Mr Holland: We are certainly nor, producing anything like the volume of goods that is possible, and at the same time we arc making it impossible to maintain the market, in New Zealand for the goods that are produced. That is the basis of the case I am making. Right here. *«» New Zealand, which is our best market—infinitely a. better market than Biitain for New Zealand goods, although Britain is our best market for five of our primary products—we are dragging down the incomes of the people, not only of the wage-earners but of everybody who depends up on the wage-earners; th<» farmers, the storekeepers, and everyone' else who has anything to sell. We are dragging their incomes down and making it impossible to recover the Dominion market which’ we hitherto had. That is the case so far as Now Zealand is concerned.

INCREASED PRODUCTION. The hon. mennber for Alarsden in his opening speech insisted that increased dairy production is the way out for New Zealand. 1 have also pointed out that it is one of the ways out provided we can get a market overseas for the additional goods produced. But, if wq cut the the working men down in this country, and make it impossible for them to buy dairy produce and other necessaries here in New Zealand, then the farmer will be made to suffer loss both locally and overseas. Air Ransom: Who actually finds tnc wages? The Government cannot find therm Mr Holland: Will the honourable gentleman think out what money means. I£. is the means we employ to exchange the goods produced and whether it takes the form of bank notes or gold—it does not take the form of gold in this country—or cheques or whatever it is, the paper that is used only has a valud when the goods are back of it. If the goods are produced there will be no difficulty about the means of exchange. HOW WAGES ARE PAID. The wages of the men employed are paid out of the values produced by the working men. The Afinister will recognise that men are not kept in employment for the fun of the thing;

they are employed to produce social values, and out of a portion of th,.' social values they create they receive their wages. They do not. receive anything like the full amount of the social values they create. Air Centos: The hon. gentleman haunt finished his argument.: because it would matter little whether wages were high or low, if we follow out bis argu moot. The hon. gentleman said that nfter all monc’? was ex-changed for goods; ami that it was only necessary to use paper. Apparently, therefore, it does not matter whether the notes in circulation are few or Mr Holland*. -Oh, no. It matters very much indeed. If the money in circulation is out of proporr.ior jto the vain * of out we will have inflation. NEITHER INFLATION NOR DEFLATION. Inflation means that the cost of goods goes up, and the value of wage.' and of all other incomes fall. What the Labour Party wants is neither inflation nor deflation, but stabilisation. Stabilisation means a currency that is m line with the volume of goods produced. I insist that we must concentrate on the employment of our people and the production of goods. Any Govern meat should be able to organise production and make the necessary credit arrangements to that end

Let me again empiasise the point that whatever enterprise i s un dertaken, it must be of economic value to the people of New Zealand. The whoe weakness of the Government’s present scheme is that much of the work undertaken is of no economic value to New Zealand. O n the other hand where work of economic value to the country is being undertaken, it

is carried out under slave conditions, to which neither New Zealanders nor Britishers are prepared to submit.