BENEFITS NOT YET SEEN

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1935, Page 9

BENEFITS NOT YET SEEN

RECOVERY PROGRAMME HON. C. E. MACMILLAN AT HAWERA. GOVERNMENT POLICY DEFENDED. REVIEW OF THE LEGISLATION. The major advantages which would result from the actions of. the present Government had not yet been felt, said the Hon. C. E. Macmillan, Minister of Agriculture, in an address to a well attended meeting at Hawera last night. The Mayor, Mr. J. E. Campbell, who presided welcomed the Minister. Mr. Macmillan gave a comprehensive outline of recent legislation designed, he claimed, to benefit' all • sections of the community. Contrary to the accepted practice for a Cabinet Minister he answered questions. The recent economic difficulties were unique, said the Minister, and Governments had had to do things which had often made them unpopular, but which they believed to be necessary. To have allowed matters to take their course would have caused a great deal of injustice. To give as much stimulus to export trade as possible was to ensure as little unemployment as possible, he claimed. Circumstances beyond the control of the Government had contributed to a tremendous drop in the annual value of farm products, creating an unprecedented problem which had to be faced. In justification of raising the exchange rate he pointed out that in dairying alone although production had increased by 42 per cent, from 1928 to 1934 the price decreased by 51 per cent, so that the farmer received only 70 per cent, of his 1928-29 income. Although the weight of butter and cheese had increased by 1,390,000 cwt. the value had decreased by nearly £4,000,000. If the Government had not raised the exchange rate there would have been a further decrease of £2,456,000. HELPING MAN ON LAND. Steps taken by the Government to help the man on the land and, incidentally, all sections of the community, included reductions in fertiliser prices, the Mortgagors and Tenants Relief Act (under which up till February 28 nearly 14,000 applications had been dealt with, of which 11,250 had been investigated by the commissions), interest reduction, the conversion of £139,000,000 of the national debt with a saving of £570,000 per annum, the conversion of local body debts to save £430,000 per annum, the exchange rate rise, reduction, in overdraft rates, the Agriculture (Emergency Powers Act) and the establishment of the Executive Commission, the Mortgage Corporation to put mortgage finance on a sounder basis and legislation to enable excessive liabilities of farmer mortgagors to be adjusted to a level where they could be met.

After reviewing the negotiations with Britain on restrictions and quotas, Mr. Macmillan said there would be no embargo on the export of bobby calf meat in the present season. The effects of the Government’s acts could not yet be measured as the controlling organisations were only recently set. It was well known that voluntary adjustments were being made all the time. He would also remind them that there was nothing compulsory about any of the measures of the Government as far as the farmers were concerned. From 1925 to 1933 withdrawals from the Post Office Savings Banks had exceeded deposits, but in 1934 and 1935 there had been an excess of deposits over withdrawals of £s,ooo,ooo—the beginning, he claimed, of the effects of the Govemmeht’s legislation. That people were spending more money was shown by the increase in sales tax of over £23,000 from April, 1934, to April, 1935, and an increase in imports of £6,245,000 for the same period. In the past iwo years there had been an improvement of £600,000 in the unemployment tax collections despite the fact that the rate had been reduced last October. The unemployment figures of July as compared with July, 1934, showed a reduction of over 5000. It was not correct to say that the Government had added to the national debt to account for those improvements. The Government had reduced the national debt. The recovery in business was a real one.