SAVED FROM COLLAPSE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 23 August 1935, Page 8

SAVED FROM COLLAPSE

N.Z. PRIMARY INDUSTRIES STEPS TAKEN BY CABINET EKETAHUNA, Aug. 22. Steps taken by the Government to save the agricultural and pastoral industries from collapse, were dealt with oy the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. C. E. Macmillan, during a public address at Eketahuna to-night. Mr Macmillan claimed that as a result of these measures, the whole community had benefited, and that the ruin that threatened us was averted. “We cannot measure how much better off we are now than we might have been,” he added, “but we can be certain that we should still be in a very bad way indeed had the measures taken not been successful.”

Mr Macmillan said that if improvement had shown itself only in some directions, and nofc generally, it might be taken as an indication that legislative action had unduly favoured some sections of the community at the expense of others. The improved figures shown in the latest returns, however, covered the whole range of statistics, and included exports, imports, and business done within the Dominion'. That the people now had money to spend was shown in the greater amounts invested on the totalisator, and that they were able to save more was evident from the £4,500,000 increase in depositors’ accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank in the year ended March 31 last. This followed a £2,800,000 increase the previous year, and contrasted most strikingly with the decreases of £1,000,000 in 1933 and £4,500,000 in 1932. Government revenue figures also showed a healthy and general increase.