BUDGET DEBATE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 199, 24 July 1941, Page 8

BUDGET DEBATE.

MR LEE'S CRITICISM. (Press Assn) WELLINGTON, July 23. Speaking during the Budget,debate in the House of Representatives, Mr J. A. Lee (Dem. Lab., Grey Lynn) ■ said that, while the Budget did contain many tilings of value to the community, it did contain a good deal of arsenic-behind the sugar. Firstly, he said, he would like to say something about the Waitemata byelection. He was not a squealer and could take his gruel. In Waitemata his party had a good candidate and a good cause and they would “come again.” Personally, he thought the contest showed a definite swing'to the National Party. More the > pity, because he did not think the National Party had a constructive idea. Mr Lee also referred to the concessions made in the Budget such as increased family allowances and the increase given to families of soldiers, namely a shilling a day. While they were improvements they did not go far enough. We had to give far more generous treatment to the dependants of soldiers, especially married ones, before we started to break up homes by conscription. Mr Lee said he did not consider the winning of the war alone was enough. They had to win the war and establish the foundations of a worthwhile world for the soldiers to come back to, and lie said such an order would not bo possible under a system of building up a staggering magnitude of debt. There was not a Labour, member who had not said what he was now saying, hut lie was au offender because, believing them, ho still said those things while a party machine evidently had reversed the attitude (of the members of the Labour Party. Mr Lee then proceeded to denounce the debt system. | Mr Lee also contended tltat the Labour Party had political )‘oold feet.” Pie supposed he would be abused for espousing the principles (that had brought him into the Labour Party and into the House, but he was not afraid of that. All the taints, jibes and abuse would not destroy his crusade for intelligent control iof the financial system, for without 'intelligent control a house that was bußt on sand would fall. Personal differences with the members for Grey Lynn were ventilated by Mr A. G. Osborne (Lab,, Onehunga), who lor tho main devoted himself to criticism of activities of members of the Democratic Labour Party in connection with the Waitemata byelection and also circumstances relating to their severance of their connection with the official Labour Party. Mr Osborne had not completed his speech when the debate was interrupted by tho adjournment at 10.30 p.m.