MONETARY SYSTEM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20480, 5 December 1934, Page 8

MONETARY SYSTEM.

Greater Elasticity Needed, Says Mr Savage. Per Press Association. FEILDING, This Day. In an address to a large audience at Feilding last night, Mr Savage, Leader of the Opposition, dealt at length with the present financial system, including the methods of taxation adopted from time to time for public purposes. Discussing the monetary system, Mr Savage stated that modern industrial conditions demanded greater elasticity in the issue and control of money than had existed for generations past. The monetary system should not be harnessed to anything static while revolutionary changes were taking place in the economic life of the nation. Science and machinery had solved the problem of production to such an extent as to make possible a standard of life undreamed oi in any previous period of human history. The main problem that remained to be solved was the problem of distribution, and until people realised that the chief function of money was to serve in distribution at the same rate as science and machinery served in production, the tragedy of poverty and distress amidst plenty would continue. Opponents of Labour had said that far-reaching changes such as guaranteed prices would mean an abnormal increase in taxation. Such was not the case, as guaranteed prices would be based upon guaranteed wages and salaries. At the present time inequitable forms of taxation were directly levied for providing an army of men with starvation rates of pay on works of questionable value, instead of on work of national importance. A vote of thanks was passed to Mr Savage for his address.