RECONSTRUCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18466, 30 January 1922, Page 5

RECONSTRUCTION

PLEA FOR FRANK DISCITS- . SION. SPEECH BY VISCOUNT GREY SUPREME COUNCIL CRITICISED. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright ■ LONDON, January 27. Viscount Grey, when speaking at Edinburgh, said that all were agreed that the reconstruction and restoration of Europe was an urgent thing. There must be, ho continued, an understanding between the two most powerfully organised nations, Great Britain and France, in order to start that policy, but wo Mound at the present moment less confidence and . less good understanding than at any time since the Entente was made in ISO 4. That was due to the method employed by Supremo Council in dealing with foreign affairs. Personally, |he had always been against secrecy in times of peace, but he did not think there had been any more openness in the methods of the Supremo Council. | His. criticism of the present Government was that there was too much limelight and too much secrecy.—A. and N.Z. Cable. THE POSITION IN ENGLAND reduced expenditure NECESSARY. RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT CONDEMNED. \ LONDON, January 27. At a meeting of the Joint City and Midland Bank Mr R. M'Kenna (chairman) delivered an address. - “ Our present scale of taxation,” he said, “is so high as to undermine the national business energy and enterprise, and to deprive us of indispensable capital. The only remedy is to reduce the expenditure to the utmost limit consistent with our contractual obligations, and the supplying ol indispensable services. If We do so now we snail quickly recover our national earning power, and with it will icome that elasticity of revenue which we experienced in the second half of last century.” Dealing with the question of Labour and the restriction of output, Mr M’Kenna i said that mistaken economic ideas were at the root of much of our trouble. He believed that a majority of the workmen thought the restriction of output had the effect of preventing men from being thrown out of employment. . w “We must convince them that their theory is false,” he said. “ All restriction of output raises the price oft the article produced, and if the restriction operates over a wide enough field it must increase the general cost of living, thus reducing the real value of the wages received by all workmen.”—A. and N.Z. Cable.