"PIOUS HOPES"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 12

"PIOUS HOPES"

THE BUDGET EXAMINED MR COATES'S PARAPHRASE AMAZING INCONSISTENCIES "POLITICAL MICAWBERS" (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Aug. 9. "The Budget justifies the conclusion that the members of the Government are nothing but a party of political Mlcawbers, waiting for something to turn up," said Mr J. G. Coates (Opposition, Kaipara) during the Financial Debate in the House of Representatives to-day. "They are pure opportunists," he said- „ , , Mr Coates said that the Budget contained many pious hopes and much emphasis .on the need for community effort, but it did nothing to meet the needs it described. Instead of encouraging the nation to work for real wealth, it subscribed to the hope that something would turn up. What the Budget Says "The Budget itself is not a long document as Budgets go, but a fair paraphrase could make it even shorter," Mr Coates continued. " We can paraphrase it, perhaps, in these words. The Government in effect says: 'We know that the road we have followed for the last three years has been the wrong road, and that at the end of that road there is financial chaos. We know that ir. concentrating on the economics of distribution we have ignored the economics of production and that our national output of goods is insufficient backing for the currency we have ordered to be created. We realise that our national economy is sadly out of balance and that the only way to get back to a position of equilibrium is to discontinue uneconomic works, revise Government spending, and allow industry to function in the production of useful goods. We know all these things, but certain of our more militant supporters inside and outside Parliament will have none of them. They believe that wealth can be won without working for it.'

" ' There is need in the country today for the strictest economy and, therefore, we are increasing our expenditure from £35,773,000 to £38,243,000. Our revenue is falling, but if we adhered to last year's expenditure last year's surplus would enable us to balance the Budget. But our more militant members insist that we-should spend more than we earn, and so we have decided to collect from the people an extra £2,500,000 in taxation. They cannot afford it, we know, but when they allow themselves the luxury of a Labour Government they have to pay for it.'" Mr J. O'Brien (Govt., Westland): Everybody is happy. Mr Coates: Everyone is in great heart, except the farmers, the importers, the taxpayers, the employers who cannot get labour because our Public Works Department has got in ahead of them, and the workers who are periodically going on strike. The Spending Habit The Budget, Mr Coates said, was like a rake's Government, expressing repentance for three years of riotous living and at the same time admitting that the spending habit had taken such a hold of it that it could noflreak itself. Every member of the Opposition could subscribe to the first three pages of the Budget, but the rest was at variance to an amazing degree with the principles set out in the beginning. "Who wrote it, I wonder?" Mr Coates asked. " It would be interesting to know who wrote the first part." The Acting Prime Minister (Mr P. Fraser): It is the Prime Minister's Budget and nobody else's.