STILL LACKING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19882, 8 March 1939, Page 5

STILL LACKING

DETAILS OF PLAN CHANGE IN MONEY SYSTEM REMARKS OF MR. SAVAGE EVASION ALLEGED CHARGE BY MR. HAMILTON (Per Press Association.) HASTINGS, this day. “I asked Mr. Savage a plain question as to what were the details of his announced complete change of the money system,” said the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Adam Hamilton, in Hastings last evening, in reference to the comment made at Wellington during the day by the Prime Minister, the R't. Hon. M. J. Savage, concerning Mr. Hamilton’s queries on Labour suggestions for a change in the monetary systems. “His reply to-day in no particular answered that question, and it stands as a first-class sample of the deliberate evasion and .planned confusion of the ■public .mind to which I took exception “The man in the street to-day is as much in the dark about this threat to the present money system as I am, ’ said Mr. Hamilton. “Mr. Savage asks is it too much to expect my support.’ Secrecy Queried “My support for what?” asked Mr. Hamilton. "If Mr. Savage has evolved a mechanism which will entirely change the money system, why does he avoid placing the facts plainly before us all? “If he has found a touchstone of perpetual prosperity based on money manipulation, why is he so secretive about it? “As I pointed out earlier, Mr. Savage has effected a very substantial indirect cut on the incomes of people with savings and yet he now proposes to persuade them, after threatening them, that the has plans for the use of their ■money. There is a grim humour about that. “Mr. Savage was’precise about his attitude to savings when on October 31. -1936, he said: ’This scratching, scraping, starvation system of individual saving? strangles the economic freedom and well-being of a nation. We have got to stop that.’

“Negatively Abusive”

“Now the scratchers and scrapers are going to be used for Mr. Savage s ■unannounced ends.

“We have to-day a picture of a Prime Minister openly telling the country that 'he is changing the whole money system and then turning round, when asked for simple details in simple language, to become negatively abusive. Can ho wonder that he .himself is playing sucn a prominent part in damaging New Zealand’s credit and good name?” asked Mr. Hamilton.

“The circumstances suggest tha!, even immediately after his own boastfulness of his election at the polls, he is afraid to be straight-forward in announcing details I properly sought. To give facts would be positive action, but it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Savage’s own negative attitude of suppression must 'be trying and bewildering even to his supporters.’