BUDGET DEBATE

Northern Advocate, 14 August 1929, Page 5

BUDGET DEBATE

MR RUSHWORTH’S SPEECH

CASE POR THE PARMER. TILT AT THE PRIME MINISTER. (From Our Parliamentary Special.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Mr H. M, Rushiworth (Bay of Islands) figured in the Financial Debate in the House of Representatives last night. In opening, he said that the statistics in New Zealand were not sufficient to show the true position of farmers. Referring to the State Advances he eon* tended that .private institutions were becoming shyer and shyer of lending money on rural securities, and- that was-not to be wondered at. The State Advances Board had also followed the same lines and the number of applications that had been turned- down in recent years was phenomenal. - The board should take a more liberal view of the applications. He referred to the cost, of the carriage of lime and fertilisers and the increases that had taken place in the charges for the carriage of butter and other produce, with the result that , the Railway Department was making a profit out of such freights. The rates in New Zealand were considerably higher than in any other country in the world and the farmers were paying through the nose all the time. An, outstanding feature of the Budget was that no reduction was proposed in the cost of the necessities of life. The additional primage duty would actually add to the cost of living, which was already the highest in the world. Of course, business people "would pass on the increase in the primage duty. There were two policies that could be adopted ithat of making New Zealand an exporting country and that of making it self-contained. They w.ere mutually destructive. To consume our own produce, we would require a population of about 12,000,000. At the present rate of population increase it would take 30 years for the Dominion to be able to absorb its own produce, if its production remained at the previous level; He strongly held that import duties should be imposed on certain commodities.' Customs duties automatically resulted in an. increase in prices on the local- market, and it seemed to him that the most profitable Way 1 of meeting the deficit was to enCourfige the purchasing of New Zealand goods.

Mr Eushworth said that a-case of hardship under the land tax proposals had already eome before his notice. He cited one- instance in which, he 0 7 said, a farmer’s, total revenue would be absorbed in taxes. Some provision should be made to meet cases of hardship, for he felt concerned for- the people who were already -on the verge of not being able to carry- on. They should- guard against taxing a man on his indebtedness, • He suggested that bank shareholders should be. required to pay a revenue tax, thus enabling farmers and others to be relieved of the extra cost of living by the addition consequent. on the doubled primage duty. Financial institutions had an absolute stranglehold bn the Dominion and it was necessary to grapple with the octopus before it was too late. He had understood 'Sir Joseph Ward, in private conversation, to say that his policy involved two main points—one a frho breakfast tlble, whatever that might mean, and, secondly, intention to.tackle financial rings, whatever that might moan. He had heard it said that the Prime Minister was a financial wizard, and the speaker was still waiting for him to “pull the rabbit out of ’ thk hat. 1 f He was waiting for a welldefined, (jlear-eut policy to be declared. Turning to unemployment, he said the general action of unemployment would tend to the creation of unemployables. “Hope sprang-eternal in the human breast,” but unless the Government defined a clear-cut policy and followed it fearlessly, it would only have a short term in office.