“MUST CUT EXPENDITURE”

Taranaki Daily News, 20 October 1930, Page 9

“MUST CUT EXPENDITURE”

BRITISH LIBERAL POLICY

PRECEDENT IN AUSTRALIA

PROPOSAL OF CONFERENCE

LOWER COSTS ESSENTIAL

By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. London, Oct. 17.

“Australia has set a precedent for the lowering of o-overnuiental costs, and the British (government must • make drastic cuts in expenditure,” declared Mr. Lloyd George, addressing the Liberal Conference at Torquay.

The Liberals proposed summoning a conference of industrial, banking and commercial interests and trades unions to review the position and make proposals for reducing the cost of production without lowering the workers standard of living. The banks should be urged to agree to a policy of less restricted credits for financing industrial developments. A national development loan, probably of £100,000,000 should be raised to finance slum clearance and other public works, instead of investing that capital abroad. He did not believe British wheaterrowers could compete with the great .overseas prairies at the present prices. The quota would be equivalent to a tariff of 50 per cent. He asked them to consider the proposition that the country had the heaviest taxation in the world, a debt of £8000,000,000, two million unemployed, and talked of paying a subsidy to the farmers at the end of the earth, who were generally prosperous.