LABOUR POLICY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXL, Issue 20260, 8 November 1935, Page 8

LABOUR POLICY

“MISLEADING PICTURE DRAWN ”

TACTICS OF OPPONENTS CONDEMNED By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, November 7. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr M. J. Savage, addressed a meeting in the Choral Hall to-night. The hall was crowded although the night was wet and wintry. The Mayor (Mr D. G. Sullivan) presided. Mr Savage was given a most cordial welcome, the audience singing, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and at the conclusion of the address a motion was carried by a show of hands with one dissentient expresing thanks to the speaker and confidence in the Labour Party. Mr Savage dealt with some of the tactics employed by Government organisers in their attempts to discredit the Labour Party in the eyes of the electors. Mr Savage stated that large and expensive advertisements were appearing in the newspapers, the object of which was to stampede the people into believing that their savings would not be safe under a Labour Administration. Such propaganda came very badly from a Government which by its own deliberate act in raising the rate of exchange had brought the value of the New Zealand £ from 20/- down to 16/1. If some of the Government mathematicians were to go into the figures, they would have no difficulty in advising the electors just what that meant to depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank who had £49,423,714 standing to their credit at March 31, 1935. Every person who deposited in any bank a pound worth 20/- before the raising of the rate of exchange could at present draw from that bank a pound worth only 16/1. The same applied to the total deposits of all the banks which amounted to approximately £120,000,000. The raising of the rate of had, without any run on the banks, destroyed 3/11 out of every pound of the people’s savings. Another aspect of the matter was that working men were not allowed to have savings in any bank so long as they were employed under the Unemployment Act Before men could qualify for relief work they were bound to use up their savings.

The Government propaganda against Labour was intended to convey the impression that under a Labour Administration the Post Office Savings Bank would not be able to meet the demands of its depositors. The fact was that they could not be met now as the great bulk of the money had been invested in other undertakings, some of them of very questionable value. All the banks were in a similar position. It did not mean that they were not solvent, but It did mean that the misleading picture drawn by the Government of the possibilities under a Labour Government would apply today if the banks were put to an unfair test. The object of Labour was to make it possible for the people to have something to save and then to safeguard those savings.

“SPREADING TREACLE FOR FLIES" By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, November 7. “God help New Zealand If as a result of the election, a Labour Government is given control of national finance and administrative affairs for the next four years,” said Mr Forbes at Oxford, in his own electorate, tonight. “It will mean a worse disaster than the severe depression from which the country has emerged. It will involve control of the banking machinery of the Dominion and the savings of the people. The people must face that prospect as the most serious issue ever submitted to the electors of New Zealand.” Mr Forbes said the position to-day was that on the one hand the electors had an experienced Government which had proved its courage and ability to face realities, and on the other hand there was a Labour Party with no experience of administrative affairs but with a fantastic experimental financial policy. There were other parties in the field, but the issue was really between the Government and Labour. He likened Labour’s promises to “spreading treacle for flies.”