The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1922. THE ADDRESS DEBATE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11255, 6 July 1922, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1922. THE ADDRESS DEBATE

“Things are not what they seem.” was apparently the text of the mover of the Address-in-Reply, if we may judge by some of the chief points of his speech. For example, the GovernorGeneral’s Speech seemed to be without a policy. But the real thing, according to Mr Jones, is quite opposite to the seeming, for, as he has discovered, the Speech fairly bristled with policy: the points of policy, in fact, ran over the whole ground of the Speech with something like prodigal profusion. Thus Mr Jones justified his right to praise the optimistic note in the Speech, and. with an optimism beyond anything that has yet appeared, ventured to believe that the world would presently be noting all these points of policy now dazzling his eyes with their gleaming. Another thing which is not as it seems is, Mr Jones avers, the public debt of this country. In his speech he said much about this debt, which shows his knowledge of various of its phases. But one phase seeme to have baffled his power of absorbing knowledge. The debt seems to bo growing rather fast; to the thinking of not a few, dangerously fast. But the optimistic eye of Mr Jones has discovered that the reality differs from the seeming very radically. The debt is, he insisted, not increasing at all. How he can believe that, in the face of his reference to the five-million loan, it is difficult to believe. The reference was in connection with his plea to “Leave the Prime Minister alone.’’ His supporting reason was that the immense success of the five-million loan showed what the world thought about him. An increase of five millions in one year, it seems, proves that our debt is not increasing. This is how Mr Jones proves that things are not what they seem. Mr Jones, it must be conceded, did not live right through his speech in the abstract. Regard for truth compels the ‘admission that occasionally he did stray into the concrete.* A praiseworthy course. A pity the course was not opened and followed with discretion. The course of his stream of whitewash swirled around the piles supporting the Government’s seizure of the accumulated surpluses. It did so with intent to strengthen the Government’s disposal of these accumulations. Ho put the case simply. There were the returned soldiers, under the aegis of solemn promises of treatment good beyond the utmost of gratitude; there were the accumulations; between the two nothing, not even a shadow of a chance to raise money except at exorbitant interest. This point of no alternative received strong corroboration from the Prime Minister. Ergo, thero was nothing for it but to take the accumulations. These were the reserve piled mi during the fat financial

years, and kept to feed the lean financial years looming before discerning eyes. No matter. There was no alternative. The accumulations had to go, and they went. At this point Dr Thacker fired a shot into the beautiful logical fabric. “You ought to have given bonds to the sellers of the lands,” he said. One sees in a flash that the accumulations, might have been saved. Payment by bonds might have meant, it may be argued, hardship to the sellers of land, ahich meant that the value of the bonds would have fallen indubitably below the level of the boom prices given for the land. As the boom price was really a speculative fiction, the fall of the bond values would have represented, at the worst, deprivation of a fictitious thing. That deprivation was avoided, and the soldier-buyers are carrying a millstone assessed at the boom value. To take the fiction from the seller, the fiction was made a reality to the buyer, the seller getting cash instead. Thus the Thacker missile upset the case with one direct hit. But the hardship of the policy remains. Thu hardship to the public interest remains. The foreseen slump has come, and the means provided to deal with it has disappeared. “The devil to pay, and no pitch hot.” The seconder, Mr Clutha Mackenzie, made an excellent speech. But it was not on the side of the Government, except for one point, which was not quite true. The point is the declaration that the Massey Party is ‘the party of the Empire. From the Liberal side of the House came: (I) The policy which sent contingents to the South African war; (2) the gift of the Dreadnought; (3) the policy of Imperial preference. In two of these the Massey Party followed the t Liberal lead; in the other, that party began by fiercely and uncompromisingly attacking the gift of the Dreadnought, and ended by complacently accepting the entire credit for it. That party may be a party of the Empire, but it : is not the only party of the Empire. It is, therefore, not quite true to call it “The Party of the Empire.” We yield to none in giving Mr Massey credit for the services he has performed on several occasions at the heart of the Empire. Nevertheless, we demur to the statement that his party is par excellence the Party of the Empire. That he i 6 doing well Imperially, we admit. But that no party but his is either able or willing to do at least ■as well as his party, we deny.

To return to the rest of Mr Mackenzie’s speech. It was, as we have said, not in favour of the Government. On the contrary, it was a condemnation of its policy of repatriation, immigration, and settlement. By the implication of his own outline of what a policy on this triple line should be, bis condemnation of the Government policy is the strongest possible. The key to such a policy, he said, is the subdivision of the land. Without that subdivision properly controlled, there is no hope for increased production, for immigration, for successful farming. As there is no-proper plan of subdivision, the people flock to the towns—B4 per cent, of the increase since 1911 going to the boroughs, the womt case being Otago, where the country got only 17 of the numerical increase, the boroughs getting 13,000 — the right kind of immigrants who are ready to come keep away, ' and the prices of land remain prohibitive when they are not pitfalls for the unwary, profitable : only to land agents and speculators, while many unemployed are looking around hopelessly for relief. What is wanted, above all things, is a policy which will take’ tbo country out of this problem, the key to which is the progressive, rapid settlement of the land. The mover of the Address, seeing so many policies, did not see this one; and the seconder, seeing it, evidently thought it ought to have been in the Speech he was helping the House to accept.