“NO CONFIDENCE”

Taranaki Daily News, 27 July 1935, Page 9

“NO CONFIDENCE”

debate on the government. -OPPONENTS WIN THE VERDICT. Between humour, serious argument and invective the axiom that the chief purpose of a government is to do the wrong thing received a good tossing about on the tongues of debaters at New Plymouth last night during a discussion of the motion “That the Government of this country has not the confidence of this meeting.” The vote was decisively in favour of the proposition. The debate was conducted by. the New Plymouth Debating Society. It was not a political meeting, but a debate, said the Chairman, Mr. R. W..D. Robertson. He emphasised the point that .the speakers were not necessarily stating their personal views. Arguing against the system rather than -the government, Mr. H. E. Ayckboume launched the case for the affirmative. There was no doubt there was something wrong With the present system, he said. It had been, condemned by Marx .and later by Professor Soddy. and their opinions had been recently endorsed by church dignitaries and others interested in human affairs. In fact, technologists had arrived at the conclusion that it was impossible to do anything with it. They were up against the fact that machinery, in its rapid development, created - unemployment, ahd there was no doubt that they could not improve the position unless they altered the system under which they were living or trying to live. % After referring to unemployment and other present facts of the age, Mr. Ayckbbume maintained that the governments of New • Zealand and other countries represented a system of, civilisation that was anti-Christian and inhuman, a system that left people in. want and starvation, though , there was no Jack of material or produce. Could they support such a system? he asked. Or could they support the representatives of a government that supported such a system? •. ; THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW* .. The other side of the question was put initially, by. Mr. W. G. Watts. It. was fashionable to condemn the Government, he said. Communism, a dictatorship, a Mussolini were suggested as alternatives, but he maintained that this .Government had; proved that democracy was not a failure, but “a howling success.” After reviewing economic developments since -the war, through prosperity and a minor depression, more prosperity, Mr. Watts referred to the measures the Government., had taken from 1929 onwards, to combat the big depression. He quoted figures showing the stupendous difficulties the Government had to face, and the manner in which it had dealt with them. • . Following the declaration of a national emergency in 1931 and the co-operation of the Reform and United parties, the Government had taken the correct, but unpopular course of applying remedies. He contrasted these remedies with the father who held his son’s nose to give him castor oil that was for his ultimate good.- The-economic collapse was met in a national way. Since 1931 £14,000,000 was spent on the relief of unemployment, not from loans but from taxation. The Government had done the right thing in insisting that the country should live within its income—

An interjector: And if we have not got bne? “Live on it, just the same,” said another member of the audience. The Government, concluded Mr. Watts, had met unemployment in a sound and generous way and had done more than Mussolini by balancing its budget. Seconding for the affirmative,.Mr. R. A. Gilbert charged the Government with wasting public money, gross mismanagement- of the ur.try’s affairs, flagrant disregard of constitutional rights, and betrayal of the people. He said the New Zealand Government reminded him of the' following verse:—’ / Out at the elbows, out at the toes, Hatless and shirtless, blue the • nose, Dirty and lazy, beastly and low, - Onward and downward, daily we go. CAPITALIST SYSTEM.' ' There was nothing wrong with the Capitalist system, for it developed commensurately with the evolution of human progress, contended Mr. O. E. White in seconding for the ’negative. The only alternative, Socialism, had been proved a ghastly failure. He likened, Mr. Ayckbburne’s argument to r the attitude of the motorist who when his car goes wrong calls for an autogyro—a change of the. system. ’ Mr. Gilbert, on the other hand, had said they were applying the system wrongly. New Zealand tb-day had the best ‘financial reputation in the world—“ln spite of the Government!” declared an interjector.' ' ‘ ’ “Because of it!” retorted Mr. White, fie maintained the degree of distress in New Zealand was- less than in any other, country in the world. . The argument was continued in fiveminute speeches by. members of the audience, only two of whom had anything good to say of the Government. "To hand over the Government of this country to the Labour Party would be worse than handing it back to the Maoris and apologising for taking it,” declared one stout supporter of the present regime. “The best we can say of Labour governments the Whole world over is that they have been a glorious failure.” A voice: No! The speaker: Yes! But the meeting, by its vote, seemed to think l.e was wrong.