NO REPUDIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 12

NO REPUDIATION

It is now stated by the acting-leader of the House of Representatives, that those who understood the immoderate utterances of the Undersecretary to the Minister of Finance in the Budget debate to contain some suggestion of repudiation of the country’s overseas indebtedness as a means of escape for the Government from present embarrassments, were reading into Mr Lee’s speech a meaning that was not there. The country, it need not be doubted, will welcome Mr Fraser’s frank disclaimer, on the Government’s behalf, of theories and beliefs that have too often been attributed to certain members of the Socialist Party. Mr Lee occupies an office within the Government that is at least close to one of Ministerial importance. His outspokenness has been a source of worry to the Cabinet on more than one occasion, and his opinions, when publicly expressed, carry weight as much by reason of his quasi-Minis-terial status as from the fact that he is known to command a substantial following within the Parliamentary Labour group itself. In such circumstances, it is possibly not an odd thing that Mr Fraser’s vigorous disclaimer, while it contained much that was apparently intended to be explanatory of Mr Lee’s real views on the subject of financial policy, embodied no hint of censure of the latter for having caused the Budget debate to develop along such difficult lines. Mr Fraser declared that had any member, either on the Government or on the Opposition side of the House, suggested that the Government should contemplate repudiation, he would immediately have taken occasion to refute the suggestion on the Government’s behalf. The Minister, it is to be feared, heard Mr Lee with more indulgence and with less understanding than many others, both inside the House and away from it, heard him. The tone of Mr Fraser’s reply, while indicating a somewhat over-righteous indignation that the Government should even be thought to harbour views so extreme as those attributed to Mr Lee, nevertheless gave muchneeded emphasis to his repudiation of the doctrine of default. It will “ clear the air,” as Mr Hamilton has expressed it, to receive from the Government such an unequivocal assurance that default or repudiation of overseas obligations is no part of its intentions. And if the need for making such an unambiguous declaration were forced on it, the responsibility for that development belongs not to the Opposition, but to certain extreme elements within its own ranks.