"THE GAME IS UP"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19758, 12 October 1938, Page 8

"THE GAME IS UP"

SAVINGS BANK INDEX WITHDRAWALS INCREASE CHALLENGE TO MR. SAVAGE FIGURES FOR HALF-YEAR A challenge to the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. .1. Ravage, to publish the returns showing the amount jf money deposited and the anynint withdrawn from tfie Post Office Savings Bank for the six months ended on September 30 last was nade by Mr. O. C. Mazengarb. National Parly candidate for Wellington Suburbs, in an address to a meeting which crowded the Mcth•t'.ist flail at Kaiwurra. «

Mr. Mazengarb said lie had recenty referred back- to the report of he speech which Mr. Savage had nade at the Easter conference of the labour Party inaugurating the . 1938 :amD,a:g.n. That was the speech in which Mr. Savage had said that th( iresent prosperity would last only as long as the present Government vas in power to maintain it. Mr. Savage had quoted the savings bank returns as "an index to business activity" and as showing that ■"thrift to-day was at peak level." If that \va« i good argument in April it should he a gocd argumeni. to-day. Position Changing' But even while Mr. Savage wa. speaking the position was changing against him, said Mr. Mazengarb. in. Abstract of Statistics showed thai n. che first four months of this linancia ..ear the deposits had dropped by a chird of a million and that nearly a million more money had been withdrawn from the Pest Office Savings Bank. "With a push of the bell the Prism Minister can get the returns for tiu two following months," said Mi Mazengarb. "Ii they were satisfactory .j nun ne would be able to soun.. .he loud trumpet about them, jusi as he did in his broadcast speec* last April. But although 1 havt made tne challenge to the Prime Min. isier, 1 do not expect that he will publish the figures beiore the election because he knows full well thai the game is up. Shock for the'Public "The public will get a shock soon .o find that ior the first time since .he depth of the depression the people alio have accounts in the Pos, Office have withdrawn mere momhan they have paid in. It is because Ihey are finding it necessary li withdraw money and because tin Government is making such h'eavx demands upon the resources ot tin Reserve Bank that the finances have ione beyond the point at which Mr Nash can control them. "How idle it is for the Government to talk of controlling the crerii. and currency of the country ii. future when they have already lost control." added the speaker. "Thif is precisely the 'first-rate financial crisis' which leading Socialists seek to create in order to usher in the Socialist State. People did think tha Mr. Nash was strong enough to keel the left wing of the Labour Party in order, but Mr. J. A. Lee and all the Communists outside the Parlianentary group are jubilant over the way in which the Minister of Finance 's being driven into the issue o' paper money and the inflation of the currency."