FINANCE DEBATE

Southland Times, Issue 21853, 2 November 1932, Page 8

FINANCE DEBATE

LABOUR PROPOSALS MR P. FRASER’S CLAIM ONLY POINTS DISCUSSED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, November 1. “The outstanding feature of this debate is that practically nothing has been said ribout the Budget,” Mr P. Fraser (L., Wellington Central) declared when joining in the financial debate in the House of Representatives this evening. The Budget had not received much discussion, but the proposals of the Labour Party had been put forward clearly and had been debated by many of the members of the House. In opening his remarks Mr Fraser said that the Prime Minister had staged a farce that afternoon by asking for urgency. That was a little bit of comic opera he had not thought Mr Forbes capable of and he congratulated him on it. The Budget had not been debated to any extent and that was not surprising, because apart from the deficiency there was nothing much in it. It gave one ray of hope in its concluding paragraph where it said that New Zealand was a going concern. “If the present Government stays in power much longer, it will be a gone concern,” he declared. Members were also told that the Government would smooth the wav. “We have been told that we have rounded the corner,” he said, “but now the Minister of Public Works has postponed the corner for nine or 12 months. There was one healthy aspect to the debate and that was that members had expressed their opinions in defiance of the criticism of the newspapers. The Press had blamed members for talking and doing nothing, but members could retort that those who wrote leaders for papers wrote and did very little else and there was not much evidence that they thought about what they were writing either.’’ (Labour hear, hears.) After- stating that the proposals of the Labour Party had received more discussion than the Budget, Mr Fraser went on to outline them. The Labour Party stressed the need for control of currency and credit, but did not advocate inflation to an unmanageable degree. What was wanted was utilization of currency so that there would be more purchasing power and the Labour Party would put the purchasing power in the hands of those who needed it and would use it. The Labour Party stood for planned production in New Zealand because it was impossible for any country to survive the depression without planning ahead. A plan was necessary and inevitable. The Labour Party also stood for organized marketing and a step in that direction had been taken at Ottawa. “In my opinion it was an ineffective step, he said, “but still it was a step. It was a step away from the old stand pat individualistic methods.” Referring again to inflation, Mr Fraser said that the member for Invercargill had offered helpful criticism in that direction. The Labour Party was agreed about the evils of inflation and objected to the printing of money unless it Was backed by credit in the form of goods. Currency was like a tyre on a motor car. If the tyre became deflated and the car was kept running, it would soon be ruined, and if the tyre were inflated until it burst, the same result would ensue but there was a mean between the two where a car Would run smoothly. The member for Rotorua had criticized the proposals of the Labour Party to place the unemployed on reproductive work and pay them with Treasury bills, and had then said that he was willing to give two millions with the Labour Party. “Well I’m glad to have him and his two millions,” Mr Fraser said. “We’ll start at that. I'll take the bid. If he Will start at two millions he may go further.” The Labour Party was not going to play ducks and drakes. They Would not take a printing press and tun out notes that would not be worth the paper they were printed on. The member for Wellington Suburbs had discussed the position and had become very dispondent. He had put on sackcloth and had heaped ashes on his hair. “He hasn’t got much,” a member interjected amidst laughter. He had said “Woe is me, we cannot do anything,” Mr Fraser added.. He had claimed the position was hopless because a leading banker in England had admitted that it was beyond him. It was useless to take any notice of that because what British bankers had done in the past was not inspiring. There was a cloud of witnesses to say that something ought to be done and that something could be done. “What hope have we in this country if we are going to sit down and refuse to do anything?” he asked.