Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12, 1938 LOOKING BACKWARD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19758, 12 October 1938, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12, 1938 LOOKING BACKWARD

With remarkably few exceptions, Government supporters in their addresses during the election campaign have based their claims for re-election on a comparison between the conditions during the past three years and those existing during the slump period. On the main issue—whether or not the Dominion is to be converted into a socialistic State —there has been either complete silence or else vague generalities. Other questions, such as the abolition of the country quota, taking over the banks, and land tenure, have been evaded, largely because individual members of the Labour Party do not know what the policy is but must take their instructions from the Easter conference. Having only an objective—the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange—and no clearly defined steps towards the attainment of it, the public is left guessing as to what will be done if the present Government is returned for the next three years. In these circumstances, Labour candidates have little alternative other than to recall the hardships and problems of the depression, for which they blame their opponents, and to take for themselves the credit for more prosperous conditions which have been enjoyed by every country in the world. In neither case can their statements stand analysis; few countries emerged from the depression less seriously affected, and few have had the benefits of prosperity so much restricted by crippling legislation.

The value of the Dominion's exports for the years 1931 to 1932 amounted to £70,000,000; for 1936 and 1937 it was £123,000,000, an increase of £53,000,000. This £53,000,000 was, in effect, clear profit to the Dominion and it resulted solely from the increase in world prices. Can the Labour Government seriously claim that its policy had the slightest effect in 'bringing about this change? If so, how does it explain that exactly similar results were obtained in other primary producing countries without Labour Governments, and, incidentally, without artificially increasing costs against the producers? Much has been made, in particular, of the position of the dairy farmers. From 1915 to 1930, without a Labour Government, the average price for butter fat was 18.8 d: for the first two years under Labour rule the payment was at the rate of 13.84 d, or nearly 5d a pound less. During the slump period, however, the average fell to less than 9d, but if the then Government is to be blamed for this position, then previous non-Labour Governments must receive the credit for paying out twice as much in the pro-slump period; and, by the same token, the Labour Government must accept blame for paying farmers 5d a pound less than between 1915 and 1930. The same position applies to every other exported commodity, and it takes only momentary consideration to show that any Government is completely at the mercy of world conditions which it cannot control.

It is now claimed that Labour will prevent another slump, that it will insulate the Dominion against overseas influences, but the public will not overlook the fact that no one has yet attempted to explain in what way this impossible task will be accomplished. As a matter of plain indisputable fact Labour has been proved by experience lo be totally incapable of governing during a period of depression. It is desirable to recall that in 1930 a Labour Government, including some of the ablest brains that have been attracted to the movement, was in power in Great Britain. By the middle of 1931 the affairs of the country were in a chaotic condition. The unemployment fund—which had been soundly administered before the advent of Labour and was placed on a sound basis again after Labour had been dismissed—was bankrupt, and there was a prospective Budget deficit

of £170,000,000. The Cabinet—a Labour Cabinet, be it remembered — proposed to retrench, reduce wages and pensions, and even to modify the scant relief payments. But even with the most drastic economies and with heavy increases in taxation the Labour Government had to admit that it was incompetent to rule under adverse economic conditions. Although it had never suffered an adverse vote in Parliament, it was not prepared to face up to the responsibilities it had undertaken and had to appeal to its traditional opponents to get the country out of the mess in which two years of Labour rule had left it.

The experience in Australia during the same period should not require recapitulation, for there the story was much the same. A Labour Government was in office in the Commonwealth sphere. It enforced all the economies that were resorted to in New Zealand, some of them on a more drastic scale, and adopted every other device to adjust the position, but even then the Prime Minister was forced to admit that the Government—a Labour Government—could not carry on, and he asked to be relieved of his responsibility. In New South Wales the situation was even worse. Mr. Lang, it is true, did not run away from, his- job, ; but the longer he retained it' the worse matters became". The hardships under Labour in New South Wales were infinitely worse than in New Zealand, and on top of this the State defaulted in its debt payments and finally had to close the dooi-s of the people's savings bank. In the end, the Government was forced out of office by the Governor and the much-maligned Tories were again called in to clean up the mess—and they did it in a manner that has earned the admiration of the world. This is the record of Labour in a depression. On the other hand, the New Zealand non-Labour Government during the same period earned the distinction of being the only administration in the world to survive the ordeal of the slump—and from that ordeal the country emerged chastened and strained, but with its foundations unimpaired. If, therefore, economic conditions are to be accepted as a political guide, then the only conclusion is that in a slump Labour is quite unable to rule and in times of prosperity it deprives the people of some of the advantages they would enjoy under a more conservative administration.