N.Z. Must Become Self-Reliant

Northern Advocate, 21 February 1939, Page 5

N.Z. Must Become Self-Reliant

— Mr. Semple

[From Our Special Reporter .] New Zealand has been living on borrowed money and imported goods long enough,” said the Hon. R. Semple at Kaeo last night, replying to criticism that the Government was paralysing the Dominion by controlling imports and exchange. “While we have been sending money to help build foreign countries our natural wealth has been allowed to rot in the bowels of the earth. How can New Zealand aspire to higher standards of living when competing with goods brought in from Japan, working 13 hours a day, wearing a hip cloth and living on a pot of rice? To do so would bring us to the level of the coolie.

Gifts Denied. “God showered us with natural advantages, which we will have to use skill and courage to develop, making us self-contained and self-reliant, so that our boys and girls may And profitable employment.” The majority of squealers have been growing wealthy importing while our own young people have been walking the streets, denied access to the tools of production. We are not going to allow a few to become rich while thousands go withqut the necessities of life. “This Christmas, there were 30,000 more cars on the road than the Christmas before, Since we came into power there has been an increase of 50,000 cars, and three times the amount of benzine ha» been used. Mofe money has been circulating, and, what is more, there is not a hungry man or woman. Damaging Statements. “To say that the New Zealand Government. is bankrupt, and that we are waltzing down the road to ruin is the essence of falsehood, and ifne people who are saying it are traitors to their own flesh and blood. “It has been rumoured in this district that local Public Works Department contractors couldn’t be paid. That, too, is a wicked and malicious falsehood. Every man who works for me gets paid on due date, but he has to work, and there is no room for scroungers or spitoon philosophers.

Government’s Mandate. < “It is time those who are deliberately trying to cripple the Government were switched off. We have an unfettered mandate from the people, and the deeds of Parliament are the •echo of democracy. “If New Zealanders live up to their responsibility, the Dominion can become the economic laboratory of the world and the beacon light of civilisation. We must keep in step with modern plant, knowledge and methods, making room for a population of ten million people.”