MR. SAVAGE AND "SEDITION"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23507, 18 November 1939, Page 15

MR. SAVAGE AND "SEDITION"

Sir, —Mr. Savage states "that certain promises have been made to the Old Country and that these promises were going to be carried out." We all agree that it is our duty to help the Government to carry out these promises; the Opposition, Chambers of Commerce, farmers and others have affirmed this repeatedly. Mr. Savage proceeds to ask "was it a fair thing, when thousands of young men had offered their services for the defence of the British Commonwealth, that other people should take up the opposite view and do everything they could to destroy the efforts of the Government to assist the Mother Country?" Mr. Savage indicates that an example of this attempt to destroy the Government's efforts is the action of the members of the Opposition and the press in decrying the Government's policy and actions.

This is surely an unfair attempt to misrepresent what these people have done. The criticisms and objections to the Government's policv and actions are chiefly confined t.o the import control, which is literally ruining many people. This was introduced before the war, and has nothing whatever to do with the Government's efforts to help the Mother Country in the war. Another subject of criticism is the political control of the Reserve Bank, also established before the war. Again there is grave criticism of the huge public works expenditure of £23,000,000, of which £70,000 is to be spent on a radio station. Is this a war measure? Was not this programme laid down before the war? Again there is the financial danger of unlimited "borrowing" from the Reserve Bank with its inevitable inflationary effect. This was also instituted before the war. One other measure which has aroused people to protest is the commandeer of produce. This, as a war measure, is accepted, and must' be accepted as reasonable, but the protests are based on Mr. Nash's refusal to say whether it is only a "war effort," or whether it is not to be permanent, and continued after peace has been declared. If the position is examined, no unprejudiced person can point to a single paper or member of the Opposition or business organisation which lias opposed any action of Mr, Savage's party which has been taken to help in tiie war. The protests are against pre-war action, against the obvious intention of his party to use the war as an excuse to curtail our individual liberty of action and reasonable control of our own property. Ajax..