BUDGET “DEBATE” CONTINUED

Southland Times, Issue 24497, 26 July 1941, Page 8

BUDGET “DEBATE” CONTINUED

LABOUR MEMBERS CARRY ON OPPOSITION REMAINS SILENT (Special) WELLINGTON, -July 25. To describe six speeches on the Financial Statement made in the House of Representatives today as a Budget debate would be a misnomer. They were made by Government members, the Opposition refraining from speaking. The speeches smacked strongly of an electioneering flavour. Neither the Opposition nor the public appeared to be interested. After a long spell of silence an Opposition member made an interjection in the afternoon and a Government member remarked: “They’ve re-entered the debate.” In the last half-hour of the sitting only four members of the public were in the galleries, which had thin attendances all day. All the Government speakers criticized the Opposition for withdrawing from the debate., which, however, is likely to continue on its one-sided course next week. The acting Prime Minister (the Hon. W. Nash) said bills would come down as soon as the Budget debate was finished when he was asked by Mr S. G. Holland to give an indication of the business next week for the House. . “Directly or indirectly the capitalist system has been responsible for more than 8000 wars,” said Mr A. S. Richards (Lab., Roskill), who devoted the conclusion of his speech in the Budget debate to criticism of this system which, he said, the Opposition called “rugged individualism.” REPATRIATION OF SOLDIERS Today teeming millions were more or less at the mercy of the captains of industry, he said, but capitalism could not endure any more than the previous systems of savagedom, slavedom and serfdom. It was important that the present Government should be in power at the close of the war because the experience of soldiers returning after the last war, when the Opposition party was in power, was a bitter one. The Government had already turned its attention to repatriation problems. Tremendous expenses would be involved and it might be necessary io use unprecedented methods of finance. ‘lf jt is going to be an all-in policy to win the war, let it be an all-in policy when the boys come back,” he said. If members were asked which was the most important—to win the war or to defeat the Labour Government—the answer must be to win the war, yet judging from their utterances some members of the Opposition held contrary views, said Mr C. H. Chapman (Lab., Wellington North). The carping criticisms of some members amounted, to obstruction of the war effort. It was not too much to ask that when the war was in its present serious phase criticism for the sake of party advantage should be abandoned. Patriotism demanded no less. The paragraph in the Budget stating that there would be no increase in taxation had spiked the guns; of the Opposition. The Budget would allay any doubt of the ability of the Government to administer the affairs of tne country even in time of war. It is a V Budget,” he said. BUDGET DEFENDED “The principles which the Opposition condemned up to the outbreak of the war have become the principles on which other countries since the war have placed their economy,” said Mr B. Roberts (Lab., Wairarapa). Mr Roberts defended the Budget as one based on sound and enlightened principles and appropriate for a country at war. Mr Roberts said that taken altogether the Dominion had surmounted its problems well, and thanks to the magnificent spirit of co-operation displayed by the British Government the economic condition of New Zealand was good. What the Government had done for the farmers in the purchase of their surplus production had not been done by any other Government in the British Commonwealth. During the coming year the Government was making arrangements to ensure that whatever happened as a result of the war New Zealand would not be caught napping. For its part the British Government was doing everything possible to stabilize the Empire’s primary industries. Referring to marketing after the war, Mr Roberts predicted that the conditions which followed the last war would be avoided and private trading in the main exportable products would probably be restricted and there would be some form of continued State control of marketing. “NOTHING IN COMMON” The claim that it was absurd to suggest unity between the Government and the Opposition parties was made by Mr C. W. Boswell (Lab., Bay of Islands). He said that the parties could not unite because their philosophies were fundamentally opposed and the Opposition had nothing in common with the Government. Mr Boswell was critical of the recent suggestion by Mr A. Gordon, Dominion president of the National Party, that the people should stand on their own feet. “We do not want the people to stand on their own feet,” he said. What was wanted was a brotherhood with men standing and living together. When a man stood on his own feet he was very often standing on somebody else’s as well. The Budget was described by Mr Boswell as a happy document. Mr Clyde Carr (Lab., Timaru) said a measure of State planning or State control was necessary to prevent chaos, and the Government was following every country in the world in recognizing that private enterprise must be directed and controlled. Hie House rose at 5.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday.