The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, September 20th, 1932. PARLIAMENT.

Grey River Argus, 20 September 1932, Page 4

The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, September 20th, 1932. PARLIAMENT.

Whether from uncertainty or a disregard of the public, the Coalition Government has again approached a session with its policy known only to the Ministry. Tts precedents do not promise any definite pronouncement in the ’‘speech from the throne.’ 1 Yesterday the Prime Ministm- gave it out that one proposal is to be that of making permanent the expedient last session adopted of prolonging the life of Parliament. Whatever might be said for the end in view, the means adopted in attaining it are manifestly undemocratic. Such a proposal has never been put to the people. What opportunity remained for ascertaining their will has now, as far as the Government is able to deny it, been by this decision withdrawn. But the next election cannot be postponed till Doomsday. and there will come the reckoning day. An early question in the session will be that of earthquake relief. It had almost appeared as if the Prime Minister had decided to ignore the appeal of the stricken people, or else to make the restoration a matter for a State grant adequate for the,

needs of the situation, but Mr Forbes has now decided to make a national appeal. He may have had doubts as to the nature of a response, but in any case the State has a duty in this matter, which is to make a grant sufficient to remove the undoubtedly great hardship created. No matter what the fate of the appeal, such a grant is absolutely essential. The Government is apparently going to make great play with the idea of a boon being secured for the Dominion from Ottawa, but the most important of all matters on this occasion remains as in previous sessions that of finding some solution for unemployment. It may be said no direct remedy is to be expected but only an indirect improvement from a trade recovery. The fact, however, is that no semblance of any policy for a solution direct or indirect is discernible in the Coalition programme. Indeed, it is rather difficult to see the outlineeven of any Coalition programme. Ministers each and all have not had the confidence to state in any connected or comprehensive way what they may have in a legislative programme. Instead they have talked merely of altering outtariff and finishing the session at the earliest possible date. Mr Coates has failed as yet to demonstrate any reason why our own secondary industries should be sacrificed on account of what he has done at Ottawa. His explanation of the meat arrangement is by no means reassuring. He declares Australia has accepted a limitation of her meat exports which we have refused. What is the reason why New Zealand must give in advance an estimate of her meat, exports? Nobody will swallow the suggestion that it is only to enable Britain to accommodate us the more adequately. More light may be shed on the point when that portion of Mr Coates’s letter to the leader of the British delegation which he omitted yesterday in publishing the remainder is made known later. He made doubtless the best bargain that he could, but it were better to let it be tested by results than to make claims which may only result in great disappointment. As he admits, all depends under the

arrangement, upon a rise in the price level. As remarked, however, by the Opposition Leader last evening, the price level is not under the control either of Governments or producers or consumes. It remains at the mercy of the controllers of money, and the manipulators of credit. It is significant how silent on this point is Mr Coates in his account of the Ottawa Conference. Mr Holland is unquestionably right when liepoints out bow the Conference dodged the monetary issue entirely, saying almost in so many words that nothing should be done in the matter of currency unless every country were con suited, a course which completely discredited the pretentious expression of opinion that it was desirable to have a rise in the price level. Not one Minister has yet had the gumption to try and prove to the people that New Zealand will be warranted, by such protection as Britain may give to some of our industries, in removing our own protection from others of our industries. So much may be implied in the assertion that the Ottawa undertakings are entirely to our advantage. The only test apart from the ultlmte results, however, must be the tariff changes to which the country may have been committed as far as it lay in the power of its delegation to go in that direction. It is sincerely to be hoped there remains some scope for discretion

and adjustment. If not, the duty of the Opposition is to defend our secondary industries in New Zealand as strenuously as her delegation at Ottawa fought for the secondary industries of Britain. Moreover, there is a duty to do something more than to express an opinion about the raising of the price level. Apart from raising though wages the purchasing power of the mass of the peoplethere is the question of financial control, and that of the moneychangers has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. They may advance excuses, bul the things that count are the results. The credit of the public should no longer remain the perquisite of private interests. A change in this sphere is surely

coming, and if the Government of Illis country is blind to the writing on the wall, it is the duty of the Opposition to blaze the trail towards a currency system that will serve trade in every exigence

instead of letting it down just when monetary adaptation becomes most necessary.