PROSPERITY WAVE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22948, 28 January 1938, Page 12

PROSPERITY WAVE

m. SAVAGE'S PICTURE " DISREGARD OF THE FACTS" REPLY BY HON A. HAMILTON THE BURDEN OF TAXATION ['BY TELEpBAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON, Thursday "When it comes to painting a picture of prosperity, I do not think anyone can splash round nith more lavish colours than the Prime Minister," said the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. A. Hamilton, to-day. "Mr. Savage states that two years of Labour rule have brought New Zealand to the highest level of prosperity it ever experienced. There is typical lack of modesty about that .statement, but there is also an almost entire disregard of actual facts," he declared. Mr. Hamilton said a moment's thought "as sufficient to prove that the most potent cause of the present wave of prosperity was the high prices for exports of primary produce, and it was obvious that even the complicated guaranteed price scheme for dairy exports had been made possible only by the rising of the overseas market.

Selection of Figures t fhe Prime Minister, he laid, had been careful to select from the * abstract"of Statistics only those returns and figures that suited his argument. He talked about the increase in production, but omitted to mention it had beeen achieved only by a titanic effort to increase production before higher costs brought about an inevitable decrease in purchasing power. He talked about wages and employment in factories, but confined himself to lagt year's figures and ignored the fact that factories all over the country at present were fared with the prospect of shortening staffs or of working short time. The Prime Minister, he continued, 63w only what he wanted to see, but the fact remained that at a time of high prices overseas New Zealand was living right up to her income, and possibly a bit beyond it. Working lor Government

Two farts alone were sufficient to wipe out the whole of the Prime Minister's .picture of lasting prosperity. A man on a moderate income to-day, supporting a wife and one or two children, found that in the payment of direct taxation alone he was working for the Government for six weeks in evry year for nothing. With an extension of the Government's programme the chances were he would work even

C longer for nothing, and at the same * time both be and his wife found the £ purchasing value of every pound they had left steadily decreasing. Mr. Savage, Mr. Hamilton concluded, did not record that organised Labour was clamouring for higher wages. Probably he did • not care to think. The need for higher wages was a direct result of the Government's policy of endeavouring to spend its way into prosperity.