SPENDING POWER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 227, 23 August 1935, Page 10

SPENDING POWER.

VIEWPOINT OF LABOUR. Per Press Association. CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 23. The statement made by Sir Alfred Ransom at Dunedin that the raising of tne exchange had expanded the national spending power by at least £10,000,000 was disputed by Mr M. J. Savage (Leader of the Opposition), when addressing a large audience at Cambridge last night. Mr Savage said the raising of the exchange had only transferred the existing spending power from some pockets into others. The aggregate amount of spending power was not expanded, in tlie last ten years the dairy farmers had doubled their output, but the cash returns remained about the same. It seemed right to suggest that in- | creased production was useless unless the benefit reached the people, including the farmers, by means of increased purchasing power. Mr Savage said Sir Alfred Ransom had quite overlooked the lact that wages and salaries had been reduced by not less than £100,000,00 since 1930. It was not very difficult for even Sir Alfred Ransom to see that his exaggerated bill of costs could easily have been met if wages had not been reduced during the period of increasing production. In the opinion of the Labour Party tlie war debts between tlie nations should be cancelled, and if Labour became the Government it would enter into immediate negotiations to achieve this purpose.