THE ELECTIONS

Southland Times, Issue 22729, 4 November 1935, Page 8

THE ELECTIONS

PRIME MINISTER address delivered at AMBERLEY GEOLOGICAL RESEARCH t (Per United Press Association.) Christchurch, November 3. Present investigations of the natural resources of New Zealand, principally for oil, gold, iron and flax, were described by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) in an address at Amberley on Saturday. Mr Forbes particularly mentioned the survey of new areas for oil by geologists of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. New Zealand was now entering a period when'some time could be devoted to reconstruction, said Mr Forbes. It was necessary to determine what new industries could be established or stimulated. Many attempts had been made to exploit oil resources in New Zealand, but the companies formed had usually lost their shareholders’ money. Large areas of country, however, had never really been explored for oil. The Government had decided to initiate a proper investigation with geological teams at work in the field. If oil could be found in New Zealand it would be of great assistance to country geologists. He said they were quite hopeful of an investigation also being made into the production of oil from coal. Mr Forbes said improved methods had been operated in the preparation of flax fibre and he believed the industry would one day regain its former prosperity. After defending the Governments actions in helping New Zealand through the crisis, Mr Forbes said that some critics of the Government said that merely by manipulation of the currency difficulties could be overcome. “We all know from hard experience,” he said, “that we can’t get something for nothing and whatever fanciful scheme for currency manipulation is proposed it has to be remembered that the bill for it will come to somebody in the end. The Old Country, with its wide experience, has never tended to leave the rails and follow any of these schemes. Industry, prudence and thrift provide the only ways out. To believe there is a quick and easy way out and that our own effort and initiative are not necessary is a delusion. Mr Forbes, replying to a question, said an immigration policy could not be considered while 50,000 people were workless. A motion of thanks and confidence was carried. LABOUR CANDIDATE ADDRESS BY MR DENHAM. Continuing his supporters’ meeting prior to the opening of his election campaign, the Labour candidate, Mr W. M. C. Denham, addressed a large attendance of friends and supporters at the Parish Hall, South Invercargill, on Saturday evening. Mr D. Harris presided, and Mr Denham received an excellent hearing throughout. Mr Denham again stressed the fact that the coming fight was between the Government candidate and himself — Coalition v. Labour, and this time Labour was going to the Treasury benches with a clear mandate from the people to put its policy into operation. He referred briefly to the Democrat Party, whose promises, inspired by Mr Davy, were on a par with the United Party and its £70,000,000 loan. No promises made by any party “engineered” by Mr Davy, whether it be “Coates and Confidence” or £70,000,000 loan, had been kept, and were not intended to be kept. They were just organizations brought into being to keep the Labour Party off the Treasury benches. But this time the bait would not be swallowed and the “Democrat Star” was already on the wane. Referring to a sub-leader in the Southland Times of a few days ago in which the editor cast a doubt on Labour’s ability to adjust the monetary system to suit present-day conditions, he said: This editor evidently considered the present financial system with its terrible contrasts of starvation amid plenty through the people being unable to purchase the goods they produced, quite sound. So long as invention increased and the machine displaced labour, unemployment would increase and the money system could not keep pace with modem science and invention. “The editor of the Times may have his own ideas regarding our system of ‘sound finance’,” said Mr Denham, “but there were thousands throughout the Dominion who would disagree with the editor’s statements of the other morning.” As a result of Parliament assuming control of the public credit the Swedish Government had balanced its budget and the unemployment problem was nearing complete solution. The Swedish national debt had been reduced by 10 million dollars and the sum asked for this year for unemployment was 15 millions against 40 millions appropriated last year. Half of the Swedish appropriation of last year was yet unspent and unemployment had been reduced to one per cent, of the total population. Sweden’s monetai-y system was based on goods and services and if Sweden could make a success of the job, the New Zealand Labour Party could do the same for New Zealand. Japan had a system of social credit and we had Japanese goods all over the country despite our tariffs. Social credit had overcome all our tariff barriers and it had been left to other countries to adjust their monetary system to meet its production. That the monetary system had failed to meet modern requirements could be seen by a perusal of the famous Macmillan report, a report compiled after much investigation in Great Britain by a special commission of experts and bankers who had at the direction of the British Government fully investigated the financial system and he recommended a study of this report by the editor of the Southland Times. Page after page contained admissions of the instability of the present financial system. One paragraph stated: “If the situation remains unchanged in other respects, we seriously doubt whether it lies within the power of the present banking system to restore employment to a satisfactory level.” Mr Denham wondered if everyone shared the view expressed by the editor of the Times; This gentleman implied that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with our money system. Was he aware that there were one hundred and twenty million classed as “unemployed” in the world to-day? Did they think the monetary system was in perfect running order? There were 6| million young men and women up to the age of twenty-five years who had never yet been given a day’s work of any description. Those were the figures supplied by the International Labour Office of the League of Nations. Did the two million and a-half unemployed in Britain consider the monetary system incapable of improvement? Did the editor imagine that the 50,000 New Zealand unemployed, who with their dependents must number 120,000, think that the system was all right? Or the bankrupt farmers who were trying to make ends meet producing double the quantity of primary products for the same amount of money they received a few years ago? If Britain had not made a departure from the “sound finance” of

orthodox banking as practised at the beginning of the war the whole commercial security of the British Empire would have collapsed. The system could not cope with the demands made on it. That was why we had poverty, degradation and misery in a land of plenty. Only the adoption of a banking system based upon goods and services, with the establishment qf an index price-level could serve the purpose. The figures provided by the GovernYnent Statistician also showed that by this process alone could we have stability of price-levels and stability of consumption. Ninety per cent, of the population of New Zealand needed increased purchasing and consumptive power. Lord Beaverbrook had once extolled the present monetary system and had warned electors against interference with present-day banking. Six months after the National Government was returned in Great Britain, Lord Beaverbrook wrote these words: “Their power to regulate the price of money is really power to regulate theii- own profits. How does that come about? It comes from their right to fix the rate of interest which every borrower must pay for the money he gets from the banks. It involves further the right to determine the rate which the Government must pay for its borrowing. For this reason the city bankers are an important factor in fixing the level of taxation in the country. The powers of the banker must be wiped out. They have used their powers so badly that they have shown us that they are not safe custodians of the money and credit of the country.” Beaverbrook had changed his opinion of the banks evidently. Continuing, Mr Denham declared that the Labour Party proposed to act on similar lines to those laid down by Lord Beaverbrook, who stated as follows: “Our course is clear. Restore at once the money power to the Treasury and the House of Commons, where it properly belongs. Then we shall have men amenable to the whole community dealing with the vital issues of cheap money. Give back to the people the power which has been stripped from them by the city financiers.” That was the sum total of Labour’s monetary policy in New Zealand and as Professor Soddy had stated, “the people must decide who is to rule—Parliament or the banks.” There could not be two heads of the state and the electors would be given the opportunity of deciding this vital issue very soon. At the close of the meeting a strong committee was set up to attend to the detail work in the Labour- interests at the forthcoming election. AWARUA SEAT MR JAMES HARGEST. ADDRESS AT WAIKIWI. Mr James Hargest addressed a very good meeting at Waikiwi on Saturday evening, there being 250 people present. Mr John Myers was in the chair. The candidate’s address was along the lines of that given at Bluff and he received a very attentive hearing. The unemployment question, he said, was one of the outstanding problems of the past four years and had exercised the greatest concern in the minds of the members of the Government and the cares of the portfolio had undermined the health of successive ministers, but there were 42,000 unemployed on May 1931. The number had grown to the huge figure of 78,000 and then had receded to last March. Since then the lack of seasonal employment had caused it to rise appreciably, and it would recede again as the summer advanced. Of the 50,000 mentioned in March 1800 were on sustenance and about 16,000 on public works or local body jobs, working under subsidy, so the Government could claim that it was directly doing a great deal to alleviate the position. The building subsidy was the most effective method yet discovered of providing work and it had been responsible for the employment of practically every carpenter, bricklayer and member of the allied trades in Southland. Where a couple of years ago, there was a large number of builders out of work, there were few or none to-day. The Government were as sympathetic as any other party where distress was concerned, but they were responsible to the taxpayer and were bound by the limits of their income from the tax. The recent move to increase the wage rate by 10/- per week had the sympathy of every Government member, but it was going to cost £1,300,000 extra yearly and meant raising the tax from lOd to 1/3 in the £ and the 465,000 payers of the tax could not stand the strain. The new housing and planned public works scheme would greatly assist towards a solution. The desire of the Government was to get men back to their own jobs and so eliminate the permanent unemployment with its attendant disability. A vote of thanks was moved by Mr P. A. Stephens and seconded by Mrs Crowther. Earlier in the evening he spoke at Myross Bush where Mr A. Dawson took the chair. About 30 electors were present. A vote of confidence and thanks was moved by Mr Charles Calvert and seconded by Mr J. McKenzie. A CORRECTION. It was stated in the Southland Times on Saturday morning that at Mr J. Har-s gest’s Bluff meeting a motion of confidence in the candidate was carried. This was not correct. In moving a motion of thanks to the speaker, Mr J. W. Lopdell stressed the fact that he was not making it a motion of confidence, as Mr Hargest would be again visiting Bluff to address local electors and the latter would have an opportunity on election day of showing their confidence or otherwise. Mr Lopdell’s motion was seconded by Captain R. C. Harbord and carried unanimously. MR T. F. DOYLE ADDRESS AT GREENHILLS. Mr T. F. Doyle, the Labour candidate for Awarua electorate, addressed a large and enthusiastic meeting of electors in the Greenhills school-house on Saturday evening, there being standing room only. Mr Andrew Campbell occupied the chair. The chairman in introducing the speaker said that Mr Doyle’s record on various public bodies of Bluff, and particularly that of Mayor, was well known to all, and in his opinion he would make a worthy representative for Awarua in Parliament. Mr Doyle received a patient and attentive hearing, his address being frequently punctuated with applause. He dealt vigorously with the mismanagement of the country’s affairs by the Coalition Government, Public Works, taxation, pegging of exchange, Mortgage Corporation, Mortgagors’ Final Adjustment Act, Executive Commission of Agriculture, and he strongly and cpnstructively criticized the Democrat policy of borrow, bubble and burst. Mr Doyle then dealt with the Labour Party’s policy of guaranteed prices to the primary producer, national superannuation, and monetary policy, adequate protection for secondary industries, readjustment of mortgages on the basis of guaranteed prices, education, die reinstating of the five-year-old children in primary schools, and the co-operation of services of all members, who are elected, to support the Labour Party in order to obtain their full service in shaping and administering the law. At the conclusion of his address, which lasted for over two hours, the meeting was thrown open to questions at the speaker’s request. After several questions were asked and answered in a satisfactory manner the speaker re-)

ceived a hearty vote of thanks and confidence, moved by Mr John Gardner, and seconded by Mr R. Wylie. A hearty vote of thanks to the chairman, moved by the speaker, was carried by acclamation. Mr Campbell, in returning thanks, voiced his opinion that it was a pleasure to listen to Mr Doyle’s very fine address, and that it would be his honour to vote Labour at the forthcoming elections. During the past week Mr Doyle addressed very successful meetings at Hedgehope, Woodlands, Waianiwa, Spring Hills, Browns and Hokonui. MR NIEDERER’S CAMPAIGN ADDRESSES AT WOODEND AND TISBURY. Mr L. A. Niederer, Democrat candidate for Awarua, addressed a meeting at Tisbury on Friday evening, Mr W. Timpany presiding. Mr Niederer delivered an address on lines similar to those he has delivered elsewhere in the electorate and received a patient hearing, at the conclusion of which he was accorded a hearty vote of thanks on the motion of Mr M. Welsh. At Woodend, Mr Niederer continued his campaign, Mr H. Wilson being chairman. Mr Niederer dealt with the major planks of his party’s platform and at the conclusion of his address several questions were asked and answered. A motion of absolute confidence in Mr Niederer and his party, moved by Mr W. Hudson and seconded by Mr V. Jordan, was carried with applause. NOISY OPPOSITION DOUGLAS CREDIT FOLLOWERS. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) Helensville, November 3. Noisy 7 opposition from a party of rabid social credit enthusiasts was encountered by the Minister of Finance (the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates) during his election meeting at Helensville last night. The majority of Mr Coates’s opponents arrived on a motor truck from outside the electorate and, placing themselves in strategic positions in the crowded hall, they made early and determined attempts to interrupt the meeting. Mr Coates turned a number of interjections to good advantage, but at question time he annoyed the visitors by refusing to answer any questions based on Douglas theories. No one understood the system, said Mr Coates, and he advised questioners to address queries to Mr Aberhart. of Alberta. BULLER SEAT . LABOUR’S CONFIDENCE IN MR WEBB. (Per United Press Association.) Westport, November 3. At a meeting to-day of delegates to the Buller Labour Representation Committee it was resolved: “That this meeting places on record our highest sense of appreciation of the conspicuous and faithful service to this constituency and the Labour movement generally by Mr P. C. Webb. We further consider the interests of the Labour Party can be best served at this juncture by requesting Mr Webb immediately to undertake propaganda work in other constituencies where he considers help is most required.”