STATEMENT DECLARED A “DASTARDLY” ONE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19108, 28 June 1930, Page 13

STATEMENT DECLARED A “DASTARDLY” ONE.

MR FLETCHER ATTACKS STORY OF BIG DEFICIT. (Special to the " Star.”) WELLINGTON, June 27. ‘No more dastardly statement was ever made than that about the £3 GOO,OOO deficit,” declared Mr J. S. Fletcher in the House to-night. Mr Fletcher said that not long ago they had heard the Minister of Mines claiming that the Government would change the deficit left by the last Government into a credit balance. Mr R. Semple: There was an election on then.” Mr Fletcher: Yes, when the present Government members were painting the clouds with moonshine. (Laughter.) Now they are daubing the l< aids with pitch. He went on to criticise the Government for not pushing on with land settlement, and said that it would have

been done but for the “ taihoa ” policy pursued by the .Minister of Lands on the one hand and the filling of the pockets of the land-owners from whom it bought high-priced farms on the other hand. “ That Htory about the £3,000,000 deficit,” he said, ‘“was the most remarkable document ever written or printed in the whole history of the Dominion.”,