DEMOCRAT LEADER.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13087, 22 October 1935, Page 5

DEMOCRAT LEADER.

SOUTH ISLAND CAMPAIGN.

WILL CHASE MR. COATES. Electric Telegraph—Press Association INVERCARGILL, Last Night. Except for a few seats in the gallery the Civic Theatre was filled when the Leader of the Democratic Party Air T. C. A. Hislop) opened his South Island campaign and expounded in detail the party’s principles and programme in a fighting policy speech. Air Hislop was welcomed with applause as lie took his chair on the stage and at the conclusion. of his speech a motion of thanks and confidence was carried. Dealing with the exchange Air Hislop declared that he had believed at the very commencement that it was wrong in principle and he still believed that. He had believed that faa'm ers had to be helped in the period of depression but the Government’s policy was not the right one and Sir Alfred Ransom when speaking in the North Island had stated that in the last exporting season the exchange had been worth £9,000,000 to the farmers. That statement, however, was grossly misleading and utterly incomplete. And against that £9,000,000 what had happened, asked Mr Hislop. The Dominion’s interest bill in London had gone up by nearly £2,000,000 a year, every single service from the farm to London had gone up, the sales tax of 5 per cent, (which was about 12. per cent, when the man in the street paid) had been put on and prices were up all round. Of the £9,000,000 not one penny had been clear profit to the farmer at the expense of improving the Dominion’s reputation in the Old Country—New Zealand’s best market—and of putting up costs all round.

"Once the exchange had been put up it was difficult to retrieve it as one silliness leads to another,” declared Air Hislop. “We believe we should get away from these artificialities and we should get our money into the proper relationship with sterling,” he continued. “But we are not silly. AYe are not going round crying ‘off with the exchange.’ The Government brought in a higher rate against the advice of its own Almister of Finance and its own Treasury. AYe say this Gov-, eminent put the exchange rate up and it c-aift bring it down without the admission that it is not prepared to make, and if that rate stays up then the debt of this country to London is increased by £40.000,000. "Our view is that the exchange should be brought to its true level with sterling YVe would require the Reserve Bank with the co-operation of other banks to bring about a reduction by tlie method, by the time and by the degree that they may think best in the interests of the whole Dominion. It is a delicate matter and we do not intend to interfere but leave it to the banks. AYe say the exchange rate should be brought down and can be brought down. Then we’ll get back our good name in the Old Country and we’ll be able to pay to the farmer on his production a bounty at least as helpful to him as the exchange. We are not proposing unlimited bounties for when prices are restored to a paying level then there will be no necessity for them.”

Concluding, Air Hislop declared that the Government had gone to the people in desperation for candidates offering to pay all their expenses and £250 afterwards. He criticised Air Coates’ budgets and said that for every pound the Minister estimated to get he was £2OO out. He was not afraid of Air Coates and was going to chase him through the country as hard as he (Hislop) could.