PRESS ASSAILED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19700, 4 August 1938, Page 15

PRESS ASSAILED

LABOUR MEMBERS BUTTER MARKETING DISSATISFACTION KELT MINISTER’S DEFENCE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. The debate on the Budget was continued in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon by the Hon. J. G. Cobbe (Nat. Oroua), who said that during the debate, Labour members had stated that the Government had not been responsible for the increases in the costs of various commodities, but they were very quick to accept the credit for the Government when there had been any decreases in costs. He also remarked that it was rather remarkable that during the debate, the Government speakers had talked about everything but the Budget.

Why was this? he asked. Was it because the Budget was so fragile that the Government members were afraid to handle it? Mr. Cobbe said there was a feeling of great dissatisfaction among the farmers with respect to the dairying legislation. The Hon. P. Fraser: Do you ever remember Ihe time when they were absolutely satisfied? Mr. W. J. Broadfoot (Nat. Waitomo): They will be satisfied when they get a square deal. Continuing, Mr. Cobbe said that through the operation of the local marketing of butter, the farmer was not getting London parity for his produce. They claimed that the cities were getting butter at the expense of the farmer. He commended the courage and forethought of the directors of the Reserve Bank Board for their report and criticised the Minister’s Budget statement in regard to the country’s overseas indebtedness, and contended that the country s national debt was .£5,500.000 greater at the present time than it had been a year ago. Mr. J. Hodgens (Lab. Palmerston) stated that honourable members from within the House and gentlemen who aspired to come into it, had stated that Labour Ministers were too thinskinned in connection with press criticism which they received. All that the Cabinet Ministers and the Government wanted was some measure of justice, he stated. Press Assailed For many years, he said, the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association bad published the names of counsel in court proceedings, but because the Law Society and the Public Trustee had come to an arrangement in connection with advertising space, the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association determined that it would not publish the names of counsel. lfe quoted from the Law Journal comments made by Mr. Justice Blair in reference to the position as it concerned the defence of a prisoner in a murder trial .and he also quoted the remarks on the subject made "oy the present Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers.

Every member of the House, he said, would appreciate; wny he was making these remarks. It was because the magnificent welcome which had been accorded the Prime Minister in Christchurch last Saturday had

been ignored by the Wellington papers. He contended that this was a ramp by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, and his purpose was to show that the Ministers o! the Crown, even to the Prime Minister, were not exempt lrom the methods of that association. Mr. A. G. llultciuisl (Lab.. Bay ol Plenty also referred to criticism by the press cf the Government's policy and said that the late Mr. H. J. Seddon's Government had been subjected to the same vituperative attacks. Already, he stated, arrangements had been made with the press of this country to make a bitter campaign of the coming elections They were doing it in every electorate even now. he said. He went on to deal with planks of Labour’s platform which had been carried out by the Government up to the present. The dehate was interrupted by the tea adjournment at 5 HO. Creation of Fear At the evening silling the Minister of Internal Affairs, the lion W FI. Parry, criticised the Rl. lion. .1. G. Coates, (Nat., Kaiuarai, who, he said, was endeavouring to create an impression of fear among the people in regard to Government finances in criticising the Government’s use o r .f*. 1,000,000 from the Kmploymcnl Promotion fund. The present Government, said Mr Parry, was not the first to use it for the purposes of public works. T : c only difference was that present Government was using the money for

useful purposes, instead ol placing aien on the task of chipping weeds as the past Government had done. The Minister went on to compare the methods of finance used by the Labour Government and past :c - ministrations and stated that the present Government had not borrowed any money overseas during itterm of ollice. The national surpluses under past Governments had not gone to the wage-earners or the farmers, he said, but had been used in an n'gy o' speculation and the Labour Government was still cleaning up the mess, as far as land purchases were concerned. which had been bequeathed lo it from the past.

While this orgy of spending was going on, said Mr. Parry, hundreds ol farmers wee going bankrupt. The present Government had not reduced taxation, but it had used the money it received for creating social and public services and creating national assets for the nation. Countering Opposition concern about the excess of imports over exports, Mr. Parry mentioned a period of four years under the present Opposition, then the Government, when the imports had exceeded the exports by a total of £28,000,000 and no undue concern had been expressed about it Mr. J. G. Barclay (Bab., Marsden> said he would remind Mr. Coates, who had referred to the London loan ol £17.500,000 falling due in 1040, that the Labour Government had successfully converted a much greater sum than that in its 21. years of ollice, in fact, it had converted a greater sum in that period than would fall due in the next three years. Speaking of freight rates, he said he would like to point out, in view of criticism which had been levelled at waterside workers, that it cost more than 5d a box more to ship butter from Australia to England than from New Zealand to England and that amount included waterside loading charges. The debate was interrupted by the adjournment at 10.30 o’clock.