TELL ME THE OLD, OLD STORY !

Grey River Argus, 21 September 1944, Page 8

TELL ME THE OLD, OLD STORY !

(By

R. Morant)

For the- punishment of my sins 1 ■have been listening in to the Budget and income taxation debates. Listening to Tory tactics, one realised the resumption of a retrograde movement to the later days of the Ward administration, to the days when the Massey opposition built tip the bogey of “hidden pigeon-holes,’’ and backed it with personal attacks on tne then Prime Minister. To-day tne slogan is “Government secrecy” with a backing of calamity—howling with regard to New Zealand. Broken fen-* ces. neglected farms, falling off in production, small store-keepers staggering along on the edge of bankruptcy —that is the picture drawn by speaker after speaker of the Opposition benches.

Mr.Polson. after describing the Budget as being “unintelligible to the ordinary mind,” proceeded to enlarge upon it with a mind which can only be described as extraordinary. He spoke of “the sorry spectacle of New Zealand- lined up with the mendicant nations.” That was apropos of tne Government taking advantage of a clause in an agreement with Britain providing for a rebate on export prices from that country. “Sorry spectacle?” Truly the Tory memory is wonderful in its adaptability. Does 'Mr. Polson remember the pitiful picture of some years ago, when the remarkable ring-master Sir Otto Niemeyer had two leaders of the Tory party leaping through financial hoops with the lash of his efficiently-weild-ed whip flicking their hinder ends? And the morass of depression in which his leaders landed after their leap through the last Niemeyer's hoops? Mr.’Goosman claimed that to avail ourselves of the clause in the agreement with Britain regarding review ■of export prices from England constituted a repudiation of our undertakings with England. Mr. W. TI. Morton’s was “a tale told by a Tory, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”—to paraphrase Shakespeare. His beginning was a somewhat fulsome adoration of his Leader, in which he emphasised Mr. Holland’s nationality, which is undoubted. and his youth, which in the present instance is a purely relative term. Mr. Morton was unfortunate in his choice of these attributes for glorification of his Leader; anyone possessed of a two-way memory can recall them being used in a previous slogan of his party. ‘The young New Zealander who gets things done” was one of the preludes to the election of a Prime Minister whose maladministration plunged New Zealand into the most horrible depression she ever experienced. Anyway neither the Speaker nor the listeners could, see just where Mr. Holland’s many magnificiencies came into touch with an Income Tax Bill and Mr. Morton, failing to show that his Leader was going to be taxed for his magnificence was brought bacit as nearly to the point as it appeared possible for him to get. An air raid Shelter exercised his eloquence and his emotion, indeed the latter lea him into using an unparliamentary inference, which he had to withdraw. Speaker after speaker on the Tory side reiterated the tale of desolation;, repudiation and what not until it developed into a species of saga—a sorry saga of stinking fish. Bur. 'what an Inspiration for men wno were at the moment fighting for this very country which these local Jeremiahs decry with such gusto! What a stimulant for the men and women who are at the present time doing the supporting work for the forces. What a staggering send-off for a forty million loan. Luckily we know 1 it’s all hoey; tr.rich, after fiv-p years of war, are possibly a little less rich; the poor possibly a trifle less poor and any Government that can achieve that m war time is doing a fair job of work. We, as a country, know how well off we are—the trouble is that we hardly appreciate to the full the beauties of the peace which we have enjoyed. New Zealand to-day is as good as the men who are fighting for tier; as sane and healthy as the men and women who are working for her, and so will she “continue to abide” despite the tortuous technique of Tory tautology.