HONESTY IN POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20961, 26 August 1931, Page 12

HONESTY IN POLITICS.

Sir,—'While we all give credit to Mr. Forbes as an honest man, thinking people would like to know why he has sidestepped various questions of importance in our political life. (1) The weird promise made before the election of 1928 by Sir Joseph Ward of an unlimited supply ot cheap moijey, to wit, £70,000,000, has not been refuted. (2) Mr. Forbes has made no fewer than four varying statements of the deficit under which we are groaning, viz. (a) £2,000,000, (b) £4,000,000, (c) £5,500,000, and now £6,800,000, which will probably fall short by another £2,000,000, because revenue from income and customs taxation alone can i»ever reach his estimate, so that his Budget is not as it appears. (3) His desire on the eve of a general election for postponement of an appeal to the electors is evidently 'very acute. Why? Is he afraid of them? (4) Is honesty such a rarity that its possession by Mr. Forbes calls for any comment at all? G. B. Millington.

CANADA AND NEW ZEALAND. Sir,—No doubt Mr. Forbes has made a bungle of the Canadian tariff negotiations. As Mr. Bennett says, there is a great opportunity for our wool in Canada. We do not give Canada credit for the amount of our wool she consumes. Now in Canada there are ten million people and some three million sheep and in England over forty million people and twenty odd million sheep. But in Canada the winter is about twice the length of the English winter, and I can safely say that the average Canadian during that time wears three times the weight of wool that the average Britisher wears. Is not Mr. Bennett in all probability right? Those ten million Canadians on this basis will consume as much wool as thirty millions in England, and what is more, a large part of the clothes used by the working classes are made of medium crossbred. In New Zealand the wool growers are hit harder than any section of the exporters. We have Canadian and New Zealand boats trading between the two countries and Canada has her woollen millsBut have we a Prime Minister who will go after a treaty or do we have to wait till after the election for one ?

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