The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, April 27th., 1939. FILL THE GAP !

Grey River Argus, 27 April 1939, Page 6

The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, April 27th., 1939. FILL THE GAP !

In full cry all over the country to-day are the interests looking for their wealth to the exploitation of labour rather than to the exploitation of nature. The floodgates of propaganda have been opened wide to embarrass the Government because it calls for national self-reliance. That the spur of the agitation is more political than commercial or industrial anybody can see. Thus the squatters, the bankers, and the importers, who traditionally have been allies in keeping New Zealand undeveloped and dependent upon grass, are making a united outcry against import regulation. They are even candid in aeknowledgiiig they want the Dominion again subjected to a, banking regime, and do not want industrial expansion. If, however, the consensus of public opinion could now be ascertained, it would be found that the Government has as strong a backing as ever, and that the masses have more faith in its plan to meet the economic position than in any alternative which vested interests wish to have substituted. First, the people are well aware that actual producers of wealth are not by any means as. large a proportion of the opposition as they are of the masses whose welfare the Government is working Io promote and conserve. Importers. for instance, are more concerned as a class to see New Zealanders buy products of labour overseas than products of labour in the land where they make their money. It is the same in no small degree with the banking proprietaries. As for the large landholders, they bargain for maximum imports on the score that it facilitates exports, and therefore ignore the welfare of all who are not maintained by exports. Inevitably New Zealand must adapt itself to external changes, and must protect itself against their effects, especially such as lessen the rale of exports. That cannot be done otherwise than through the establishment of more and larger secondary industries, the opportunity as well as the necessity for which was never before so great and so urgent as to-day. The people must realise that moneyed interests both within and without have been and continue using every lever to their hand against the Labour Government. To them the betterment of the standard of living is an offence if they are not skimming the cream from the national production. In the emergency due to past loan commitments and depletion of oversea credits, the Government, has had for long the calculated hostility of vested interests to encounter. Otherwise the credit situation at London had been far easier than it is. But what the wreckers calculate is that the exhibition of their influence in.the present circumstances will cause the public to quail at the spectacle, and alienate confidence from the Administration. A gospel of selfishness and stagnation is what the organs of publicity and vested interests are propagating at the moment, whereas in the doleful years when nearly .a quarter of a million New Zealanders were hard up against it, those .very faultfinders . of to-day- -w.ere .deliberately silent about the advance of

pauperism. New Zealand needs only one thing at this time to achieve a great economic advance, one which will render her more independent of outside influences than ever in the past. That thing is the confidence of the people in the value of co-operation and modernisation in the sphere of industry. It has often been demonstrated that our undoubted progress in pastoral production is insufficient for stability. It gives nothing by way of reserve for times when oversea demand slackens, or internal exigencies impose financial burdens. The example of every country with a large or fast-grow-ing population points to the wisdom of the Government’s scheme, and the history of every such country reveals that it had to face just such an exigency as New Zealand faces at present. There may be complications of defence and finance, but the basic fact is our lack of economic equilibrium, and the necessity for a more balanced industrial system. It may, indeed, be added that nothing now can prevent a substantial degree of readjustment, and the wisest course is for all to co-operate in bringing it about.