MORTGAGE ADJUSTMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 23651, 28 October 1938, Page 4

MORTGAGE ADJUSTMENTS

To The Editor

Sir,—ln today’s issue of your journal “D.C.” says, “However, I do not know much about these things and it does not help a great deal to reflect that Mr Mackay knows less.” _ That “D.C.’s” confession of his own ignorance is not merely sham modesty is borne out by his weird juggling with the figures 25 per cent, and 180 per cent., but surely he might have foreseen that I should treat with silent contempt the judgment of a man whose highest claim to qualification is that he does not know much about these things. Confession is good for the soul, it is said, but confession of other people’s sins is plain hypocrisy. Let “D.C.” for his soul’s sake stick to the genuine article. With “D.C.’s” remarks about the injustice of the Mortgagors Rehabilitation Act I most heartily agree. But there is nothing new in that. When the “crooked deal” Government first set New Zealand on this shameful and shameless course, that fine old Conservative gentleman, the late Sir Francis Bell, publicly told his colleagues, “It is below the standard of British honesty.” A further step in the downhill path to the deepest abyss of New Zealand’s shame was taken wh,en George Forbes announced that “when contracts have to be broken, it is the Government’s duty to do it.” Result: cartloads of “scraps of paper.” What puzzles me is that while “D.C.” apparently condemns these deeds of shame he endeavours to sympathize with the farmers for whose sake and at whose behests these political crimes were committed. The farmer is the receiver and—enough said. Why does “D.C.” keep tilting at merely the one Act—that passed by the Labour Party? What is his objective? An unholy idea has just struck me. A candidate mentioned here that about half the mortgages written down or off would be Government losses. So in addition to the £12,000,000 involved in the exchange rate, the farmers this year would cost the State three or four more millions. Is not this fabulous sum enough? Does “D.C.” want the State to pay the other half too? Why boggle over a million or two? Let “D.C.” make it a round twenty millions and give it a rest. —Yours, etc.,

LESLIE D. MACKAY. October 26, 1938.

To The Editor

Sir, —“D.C.” is to be commended for making the reference he did to the Mortgagors Rehabilitation Act. It is the belief of Labour that its party can insulate the country or any section of it, but in this Act it deliberately allowed innocent people to lose in some cases their only capital. It certainly gave someone relief, but at whose expense? Where, then, was the magic formula by which millions can be created whenever wanted? The Labour Government was just being generous with someone else’s cash. It will require a few more of these peculiar political appointments to the radio world and the creation of this promised chain of newspapers to back-scratch the party into renewed action. Written right across the policy of Labour is the slogan, “No sanctity of contract.” This explains the present panic in the financial world which each day’s news confirms. Labour has the confidence of no one outside itself. The true socialist believes his party is to create a State totalizator which will pay 100 to 1 for every bet made by a socialist. The contention is that there is no limit to quantity or quality of dividends, as long as there are socialists to receive them. AH the Labour Ministers, including Mr J. A. Lee, say, “Demand alone creates value.” Why any of them work for a living, I do not know. They believe that they will be cared for from the cradle to the grave. The election results show plainly that the politics of the country in future will be class warfare between producers and wage-earners. However, what hope have the socialists if the producers play them at their own game. The producer can insulate all his produce from State or political control, as the Queensland farmers did successfully when faced with ruin from socialism. The big sheep men can insulate themselves by shipping direct, shearing shed to ship. The dairyman, by the institution of producer-con-trolled marketing can insulate that industry and refuse to be the milch cow of trade unionism.

The only method of Labour is freer use of the printing press for more money. This will cheapen money and lessen the value of the wage-earner’s wages. I mentioned previously the result of this country making its currency cheaper as being suicidal inasmuch as we cannot, even if we wish, live apart from the rest of the world economically. The cablegram in today’s issue from Washington shows that the United States which attempted national economy or national insulation, is now realizing that outside its own territory its money will not buy anything, as Germany found long ago, yet we have in this country a Government of fools who think they can succeed where an almost self-contained unit like the United States has failed. The value of our exports will purchase nothing if this party remains in power much longer. Wages certainly

are increased, but is not the value of money slipping with such alarming rapidity that at the end of another term, or long before, a day’s wage will be actually worth in goods less than it was in the worst days of the slump.— Yours, etc., J. TROTTER. October 27, 1938.