The Southland Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1939. Import Restrictions And The Nationalists

Southland Times, Issue 23733, 3 February 1939, Page 6

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1939. Import Restrictions And The Nationalists

While it is easy to understand the anxiety expressed by Mr R. M. Algie in a statement from the Auckland Provincial Freedom Association, printed yesterday, it is not so easy to accept his suggestion that the National Party is remaining inactive in “a time of crisis.” Actually there is little the Opposition can do at present except to say “I told you so” in a variety of ways up and down the country; and it is probable that even yet the majority of the people are not ready to echo or approve the voice of criticism. The financial stringency which led to the imposition of exchange and import restrictions was foreseen by the National Party and predicted by its spokesmen —usually to the accompaniment of incredulous or derisive interjections —in the House of Representatives. As Mr W. J. Polson phrases it, “the Opposition has been fighting this policy in Parliament for three years with all the energy possible for a small band numbering less than a fourth of the House.” But public opinion had been influenced, naturally enough, by the evidence of prosperity: criticism was dismissed as mere pessimism or political strategy, and the Government received an unmistakable vote of confidence from the electors. It is by no means unlikely that some of the importers who have been seriously embarrassed by the import regulations voted for Labour candidates in the belief that a policy which aimed at an expanded spending power must prove beneficial to their businesses. They failed to understand that it was being implemented in defiance of economic realities.

The plain truth seems to be that criticism needs the support of something more tangible than theory if it is to become effective with the general public. It is much easier to believe that because prosperity has arrived it will remain indefinitely, and that those who insist on the essential relation between the national income and world markets, between production and expenditure, and between costs and prices, are mere reactionaries or congenital prophets of doom. The connection between a man’s politics and the state of his purse is sometimes overlooked by politicians, but it is fundamentally important, and no arguments can nullify it when the purse shows signs of depletion. At the present time the Government’s policy is approaching a critical phase; it is not too much to say that import control is the first stage in a new kind of retrenchment that may later show more familiar and unwelcome symptoms. Until this happens, however, there is little that the National Party can do except make its preparations for a strenuous opposition within the House of Representatives. The people have voted the , Government and its policy into power. It is only reasonable to assume that they are willing to see the Labour policy have a fair trial and a fair chance of surviving the difficulties that now seem to be threatening. If they discover that the critics were right after all they will be ready to support an intelligent and constructive Opposition.