EFFORTS OF COALITION

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 12 September 1933, Page 4

EFFORTS OF COALITION

PROBLEMS IN DOMINION WAY OUT OF DIFFICULTIES. SACRIFICE UNAVOIDABLE. ADDRESS BY MR COATES. ißy Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Sept. 11. “With God’s help and with good health we will carve our way through these difficulties,” said the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates in concluding an address to-day before a party of political friends at’ a luncheon to-day. Mr Ooates was enthusiastically received, and in a brief speech ho surveyed the problems which confronted the Coalition Government and the measures, including currency depreciation, which the Government, had taken to meet •them.

It was really too much to expect to hear anything good about the Government, said Mr Coates, but its members were elected to decide on the best measures for the country’s rehabilitation, and their only objective had been to follow the policy through to this conclusion. Action necessitating sacrifice was always difficult to take, but he believed the people of New Zealand now recognised that there was no alternative which did not involve sacrifice. He knew the outlook of members of the United Party. Their policy had been to distribute the benefits and they were the last to inflict, hardship on the people. To-day, however, they realised, with everybody else, that adjust merits had to be made* when the national income fell so drastically. Hu believed the people of the Dominion knew that the present Government was doing as well as any Government could do. . Mr Coates said the main problem which had faced the Government was the tremendous fall in farmers’ returns on the one hand and the very slow downward price movement of commodities which the farmers had to buy on the other. “Although there may be difficulties later on, all the Government is’ responsible for is whatever deficit may be brought about by our depreciation of the currency,” ho said, “and against that you have to set off the incease in the national income which is its result. Of course we have to draw a line across our Budget at some month in the year, and the position may then seem bad, but I am sure that ultimately the thing will cancel itself out and’our sterling assets will not be a loss ” . ~ . To-day. Mr Coates continued, things seemed to be improving. The money derived from exchange depreciation did not stay in the farmers’ pockets; it gave increased purchasing power to the community, and before long its effect would be felt in the cities.