“PEOPLE SORELY PUNISHED”

Southland Times, Issue 23887, 4 August 1939, Page 8

“PEOPLE SORELY PUNISHED”

Mr Hargest Attacks Government i SOCIALISM AS MAIN OBJECTIVE EFFECT OF INCREASE IN TAXATION (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, August 3. Declaring that the main objective of the Government was to achieve complete socialism in New Zealand, Mr J. Hargest (Nat, Awarua) said in the House of Representatives this afternoon that the taxing and general policy initiated by the present administrators was designed to crush industry, force down production and wreck private business enterprise. While the Government was working towards its objective the people were being forced to put up with unnecessary hardship, said Mr Hargest. This applied particularly in the case of persons who were living on fixed incomes; their standard of living must go down in direct relation to the continued increase in the cost of living. These persons were living on incomes that had been derived from .thrift; they were not in a position to do extra work or earn more money. But the'Government had shown no sympathy for them. They did not want to be forced on to social security but desired their liberty to live as they had always lived. The position of great numbers of these persons had become hopeless, and they had become discouraged. RISING COSTS Mr Hargest said that the costs which had to be faced by business people were steadily rising. The business man was protesting because he was compelled to raise his charge. This brought him under the law of diminishing returns, and he knew that the more he was compelled to charge his customers the less they would be able to purchase from him. The Government had also dealt the farming community one of the meanest blows in the history of the country. The whole trend of the Government’s legislation was to crush production and wreck enterprise. It had not escaped notice that the Government was now seeking to encourage the deposit of more savings in the Post Office Savings Bank, said Mr Hargest. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) had once said that he was opposed to “scratching and saving,” but his latest idea was that opportunity should be given to the people to invest their savings. The real reason why the Government wanted money in the Post Office was obvious, said Mr Hargest. ' “It wants money there so it can get its hands on it and spend it on extravagent public works projects,” he said. “It is aiming to wreck private ownership and bring the people under State domination, as willing tools of socialism. The Government is going flat out for that objective.” Mr A. S. Richards (Lab., Roskill): Wolf! Wolf!

Mr Hargest said the spending policy of the Government in the past four years had been staggering. The value of New Zealand’s exports for 1931, 1932 and 1933 had been £108,900,000, and the value of her exports for the next three years had been £183,000,000 —an increase of £74,000,000. The prosperity that had come to New Zealand had not been the result of the Government’s policy; it was the direct result of improved prices overseas. The Government had squandered the country’s nicome, and the people today were being sorely punished.