DOUGLAS CREDIT

Southland Times, Issue 22486, 22 January 1935, Page 6

DOUGLAS CREDIT

CONFERENCE OF SUPPORTERS. ASSEMBLY OF 300 MEMBERS. (Per United Press Association.) Tauranga, January 21. Some 300 members of the Douglas Credit movement are now at Mount Maungatui. Captain Rushworth, the Dominion president, arrived to-day and the formal opening of the conference takes place to-morrow morning. Mr H. Atmore, M.P., and Mr A. C. A. Sexton. of Auckland .addressed a public meeting on Saturday night. Mr Atmore, in the course of his address, said that to-day the producer was worse off than ever, and so desperate had the Government become that no Cabinet Minister was willing to face the people of any large town. There had been a time when New Zealand led the world in social and humanitarian legislation, but to-day the country was in the throes of reaction and much that we had cause to be proud of had been desecrated. He advised his hearers to make a few inquiries concerning the source of party funds. Major Douglas was the only man who had shown how to increase purchasing power without increasing prices. He did not crash before the Monetary Commission, as some had tried to make out, but the Monetary Commission had crashed before him.

Mr Sexton, dealing with the Agriculture Emergency Powers Act, said the Government’s changed policy would result in decraased production, with increased costs to be loaded on to the industry. The Supreme Council, which would be in control, consisted of Mr Justice Frazer, Mr G. A. Duncan and Mr David Jones, men not by any means the best available or particularly sympathetic toward the embarrassed dairy farmer. The Government’s proposals for dealing with tubercular cows was a hole-and-corner way of dodging its responsibilities.