SAVINGS OF THE PEOPLE

Southland Times, Issue 23306, 16 September 1937, Page 6

SAVINGS OF THE PEOPLE

Use By Government

Outlined

INTERVIEW WITH MR SAVAGE (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 15. Replying to inquiries that had been made about the inference in his statement in th- House of Representatives yesterday that the people’s _ savings were to be used to create public assets the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) in an interview today made it clear that the Government intended to do only what previous Governments had done but, if possible, to invest the savings in a more intelligent way. “When I was talking about using the people’s savings to create assets I was not introducing any new idea at all. My object in life is to have sufficient money available to allow the people to enjoy what they are capable of producing,” said Mr Savage. “I intend to bring a report down later showing that in the matter of houses and public buildings we are £16,000,000 behind. We are limited only by labour and material and we cannot possibly afford to be limited by lack of money. As long as wealth is created by spending the money we will be on perfectly safe ground. There will be no change at all, except perhaps in the direction of a more intelligent use of savings. We will give greater consideration to the investment of the people’s savings in future than in the past. There is a lot of room for argument so far as some of the securities held by the Post Office Savings Bank are concerned but they are always backed by the State and that makes them sound. “Labour and materials being available we are not going to stop providing our people with houses and our children with schools in which to be educated, not forgetting proper school houses for our teachers. As far as money is concerned our job is to develop the money system in New Zealand to enable us to develop New Zealand for the benefit of the people of New Zealand and the limit begins only when we start to turn out money without creating wealth, that is by turning the handle of the printing press. We do not belong to the printing press brigade.”