THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1933. THE OPENING OF THE SESSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22065, 22 September 1933, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1933. THE OPENING OF THE SESSION

The Governor-General’s Speech at the opening of Parliament yesterday might convey a most erroneous impression of the character of the business, that is to be transacted during the session. The unsophisticated elector might, on reading it, come justifiably to the conclusion that the session would- be unusually dull and uninteresting. To a large extent the Speech was retrospective, and it is open to the criticism that in its survey of past events it dwelt needlessly on the adverse conditions that have affected the country and that have pressed with special severity on the farming industries. The level of prices of primary products has risen very substantially of late. Thex-e has been more than the mere “ tendency ” towards an improvement, to which an allusion is made in the Speech. The increase may have been slow, but it has been so steady as to furnish a reasonable ground for the hope that it will prove permanent. The effects of it have, in any base, proved so beneficial that it seems unfortunate that there should have been so much iteration in the Speech of the difficulties with which the Dominion has been confronted in the past three years. Members of the Government have wisely, in public utterances, laid stress upon the psychological value of confidence as a factor that would contribute to the economic recovery of the country, and it seems unfortunate that in an official document, such as that which was placed yesterday in the hands of the GovernorGeneral, there was so much harping upon the stress of economic conditions. Two' or three brief paragraphs only in the Speech comprise the references in it to the legislation that is to be submitted by the Government during the session, and they are not very informative. Several subjects upon which legislation is contemplated arc mentioned, and in respect to a few of them the public is left to conjecture the nature of the proposals that will be made. The announcement regarding the revision of the law affecting companies is sufficiently specific, and this may bo said also of the reference to the measure, to which the Government attaches a great deal of significance, that will provide for the creation of a Central Reserve

Bank. In the opinion of Ministers, “ currency and credit should be subject to greater control and co-ordination by a central body specially established for the purpose.” This measure will provide one of the opportunities that will be presented during the session for discussing the Government’s own arbitrary action in depreciating the currency of the country. It is claimed in the Speech that this action “ afforded timely relief during the further depreciation in value of primary products which continued until April last.” This relief might have been afforded by other means that would, it may be imagined, have exposed the country as a whole to a smaller loss, both direct and indirect, than that in which the raising of the exchange rate has involved it. The Reserve Bank Bill may be expected to prove the piece de resistance of the Government’s programme for the session and to excite a great deal of discussion, not all of which will be well-informed. But if the Superannuation Funds Bill, of which no mention was made in the Governor-General’s Speech, is not to be withheld until a later session—and it should not be —it will certainly be productive, also, of controversy, whatever its provisions may be. The allusion in the Speech to the budgetary position is less hopeful than might have been expected, but in the meantime the taxpayers may infer, with satisfaction, from Ministerial statements in the past few days that no fresh burdens are to be heaped upon them.