ECONOMY REPORT

Southland Times, Issue 21836, 13 October 1932, Page 6

ECONOMY REPORT

STRIKING CRITICISM CHILDREN PURSUED TO GRAVES MR HOLLAND HITS OUT (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, October 12. The National Expenditure Commission through the report it had prepared for the Government had attacked the babies of the country while they were being born and would persue them to their graves, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr H. E. Holland, doclared in the course of his speech on the financial debate in the House o Representatives this evening. lhe commissioners had demanded a reduction of £7OOO in maternity bonuses and had even increased the price for the copy of a birth certificate from 2/6 to 5/-. They had attacked the baby in its cradle by demanding wholesale reductions in Plunket Society giants. They had suggested an immediate reduction of 331-3 per cent, ana an additional reduction of 16 2-3 per cent next year, .making 50 per cent, in all. The Plunket Society was doing magnificent work for New Zealand, yet they suggested saving £7250 in the activites of this valuable organization. They were going to follow the child as it grew up by abolishing family allowances. They followed the child to school. They banged the school door in the face or five-year-old children and barred and bolted the door behind a child that had reached 14 years. They sought to make children pay for the school journal. They objected to county children being conveyed to schools when their homes were distant from school. They advocated closing smaller primary schools. They wanted to make parents pay an extra £11,500 for dental clinic services. Followed to the Altar. “They follow young people to colleges,” said Mr Holland, “and advocate reduction in allowances made to training college students. This will make it impossible for children of poor parents to enter training colleges. They demand a reduction of £69,000 in the annual appropriations for>. education. They follow youth and maiden to the altar with the demand that revenue be increased by raising marriage fees. They would raise the fee on a notice of marriage from 2/6 to 5/-, the fee on a certificate authorizing marriage from £1 to £1 5/-, and the fee on a certified copy of marriage from 2/6 to 5/-. They follow the invalid to the sick bed and demand a suspension of subsidies on voluntary bequests to hospital boards. They want to reduce lhe number of hospital districts. They want to centralize the control of hospitals. They want to drive patients out of hospitals at the earliest moment. They want a rigorous system of increased charges to patients. They propose that the fees payable should be assessed while the patient is in hospital and the patient should be required to pay in full unless he makes confession of pauperism. They pursue the widow and orphan and demand a reduction in their- pitiful pensions. They demand tribute from the man slowly dying of miners’ phthisis and from the widow and orphans of a victim of that terrible disease. They demand that our pledges to ex-soldiers be violated—the soldier with his war wounds ‘knowing existence’ as Robert Burns wrote, ‘by the repercussions of pain.’ They demand that his pension shall be cut down. They demand reductions in old age pensions—the old man bent and broken in the struggle for existence, the aged woman who gave her children to the world in the days of the great adventure and greater sacrifice. All these the commissioners demand shall be compelled to surrender a portion of their wholly inadequate pensions. Beyond the Grave. “The total ‘saving’ of nearly £600,000 is demanded,’ ’said Mr Holland. “They carry their demands to the brink of the grave. They demand that the cost of a copy of a certificate of death shall be increased by 100 per cent. They carry their demands even beyond the grave and make reference to savings of £15,375 on the maintenance of overseas graves. From the cradle to the grave they have carried on what might be called a vendetta and yet the newspapers of the country find themselves capable of lauding the report and politicians in this country stand up and say that they agree with 90 per cent, of it. The report has even been eulogized in this House, but if the commissioners could be brought before a Select Committee of the House it could be shown that there could be no substantial evidence whatever to support their document.”

Mr Holland described the report as dishonest, sloppy and slovenly, and said that it was utterly valueless to the country.