MISLEADING STATEMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 4

MISLEADING STATEMENTS

The Minister of Supply has ventured into the field of public finance in his desire to assist the candidature / of the Government nominee for the Christchurch East seat. He has quoted figures very freely in the hope of inducing the electors to view the financial transactions of his party with satisfaction. Unfortunately for the realisation of this hope, he has committed himself to a few seriously misleading statements. A very obvious political motive is observable in his claim that an increase in three years in Dominion’s overseas assets froln £8,600,000 —a more correct figure would be £11,300,000 —to £40,000,000 would put the

country “ in a very favourable position to provide for imports when they become available at more favourable prices.” This promise of happy times ahead is blurred by the fallacies that accompany it. Neither the Minister nor anyone else can tell what the amount of the overseas assets will be when the import restrictions are lifted, but it is certain that a large proportion of them will be required to meet the commitments which the Government has been compelled to make in Great Britain in the prosecution of the war. In this relation Mr Sullivan brags that “ it is notable that more than £11,000,000 sterling of the debt incurred in the memorandum of security agreement has been paid as the charges came due,” and puts this boast in another form in the assertion that New Zealand has “met the greater part of the debt that has come, to charge overseas for the maintenance of her forces.’* This is a 'disingenuous statement which would seem to, have been deliberately made with the intention of deceiving the electors. The memorandum of security agreement is an instrument under which the British Government has undertaken to advance to the New Zealand Government the funds necessary for the maintenance of the Dominion soldiers engaged on active service in the Middle East. It provides a convenient method for the payment of the soldiers. Necessarily, there is a considerable lag between the payments of the men and the claim upon the Government in New Zealand for the amounts advanced for the purpose of making the payments. The Minister of Finance has himself explained that the delays in bringing the charges to account give a false appearance to the War Expenses Account. All that is disclosed in the public accounts respecting the working of the memorandum of security is that there were advances of £5,987,000 in the year 1940-41, of £8,243,000 in 1941-42, and of £3,623,000 in the first half of the current year. A payment of £11,000,000, of which there is no record in the public accounts, would certainly liquidate the greater part of the debt represented by these advances. They must, however, be only a small fraction of the disbursements made under the agreement by the British Government on behalf of the Dominion, and it is significant that in a Budget statement presented by. him in June last Mr Fraser estimated that these disbursements would amount to £46,000,000 in the course of the twelve months. In the face of this, a statement of the kind made by Mr Sullivan will almost certainly have the effect of deceiving a great many electors. They are more likely to be able to form a sound judgment concerning the administration of a department directly under Mr Sullivan’s control which, while sugar is being strictly rationed to householders, granted 2730 pounds of the commodity to an enterprising woman for an unlawful purpose.