“A FANATIC”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20893, 24 November 1937, Page 8

“A FANATIC”

MR POLSON DESCRIBES MR NASH BREEZY EXCHANGES IN HOUSE By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, November 23. Mr W. J. Polson (Nationalist, Stratford) speaking m the Finance Bill today, said he was sorry that the Rural Advances Department had gone. It had been a fine co-operative organisation and now it was being replaced by a machine. It might have been of inestimable value to the producers of the country. He thought that the hardship clause in the Bill was the worst that had been promulgated up till the present. It put unprecedented legislative power into the hands of one man, namely, the Minister of Finance. He did not suggest that the present Minister would do anything improper. A Labour interjection: He is responsible to Parliament. Mr Polson: No he is not. He is a pure autocrat. When it comes to a decision of the Commission the dice are loaded against the appellant. The Commission comprises three of the hardest of our civil servants. Even if they did say that a case of hardship existed the Minister might consider the case and say there was none and there was no appeal gainst the Minister’s decision. The Minister had previously opposed such a course but now he put it into his own Bill. Personally he would not like to refer a case to the Minister. Mr A. G. Osborne (Labour, Manakau): Perhaps the honourable member would rather have the Commissioner of Police on the Commission? Mi - Polson: I’d rather have the Commissioner of Police than the Minister, because the Minister is a fanatic. Mr A. F. Moncur (Labour, Rotorua) rose to a point of order, asking if Mr Polson was entitled to use the word fanatac. The acting-Speaker, Mr E. J. Howard: The Minister himself has not objected to the use of the word. The Hon. P. Fraser: He accepted it knowing the quarter from which it came. (Laughter.) Mr Polson, continuing, said the Minister had power to override the law itself. He had traduced members of the Opposition, saying that they were saying things which were not in the interests of the Dominion because they had dared to point to the danger of a depression. The Attorney-General, the Hon. H. G. Mason, rose to a further point of order, contending that Mr Polson had no right to use the word "traduced.” Mr Speaker (the Hon. W. E. Barnard) ruled that “traduced” was not an unparliamentary word. Mr Polson said he would not have used the word if the Minister had not flung across the floor in the form of an interjection that he (Mr Polson) did not know how to be honest.

Mr Speaker: Does the honourable member object to the Minister’s expression? Will he raise a point of order?

Mr Polson did not raise a point of order, but merely contented himself with objecting to the Minister’s objection.

Continuing his speech, Mr Polson said it was only the present boom times which enabled farmers to pay the present heavy taxation. There should be a hardship clause introduced which would prevent a farmer from being stripped of everything he possessed in the event of a depression. He urged a classification of land which would enable land which could bear taxation tc pay it and land which could not would be exempted. Some scandalous injustices had been perpetrated under the present system of taxation.