The Waipawa Mail. MONDAY, JULY 25, 1938. UNFULFILLED PROMISES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 125, 25 July 1938, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail. MONDAY, JULY 25, 1938. UNFULFILLED PROMISES.

IN vie iv of the broadsides which

Labor in Opposition directed against the imposition of the sales tax and the raising of the exchange rate to an artificial level, and the definite promises given by the Prime Minister that the former would be repealed and the latter adjusted to its true level, the plea made by Mr Savage that the Government should be given time “to do the job” makes strange reading. Two and a half years have slipped by and these two major promises still await fulfilment. In his Financial Statement, the Minister of Finance calmly predicts a revenue of £3,400,000 from the sales tax, which a few short years ago was condemned out of hand by Labor in Opposition as iniquitous and oppressive. The Minister of Finance makes no reference at all to the rate of exchange. When charged by the Leader of the Opposition with failing to keep the promises which he made to the electors in such unequivocal language, the Prime Minister falls back on the well-worn retort: “Who put it on ? ” This will not satisfy thos electors who supported the Labor Party mainly because it promised to repeal two acts by its predecessors which had a disturbing and retarding effect on business and are still having that effect to-day. The position becomes more curious when we consider the statement made by Mr Hamilton that there is reason to doubt whether the. exchange rate to-day is any longer artificial. Labor promised to reduce the rate; it has not done so, hut has, on the contrary, made it more difficult for a reduction to be effected. An endeavor to excuse broken promises by shifting 1 responsibility to the Opposition does not meet the charge of inconsistency and the public expect something better than that from the Prime Minister. They are also entitled to expect something better than a plea for more time, a plea, it should he noted, unaccompanied by any specific promise when “the job will he done.” Perhaps Mr Savage has grown wary of making promises that he knows are so difficult of fulfilment within the compass of the Government’s policy of high taxation and lavish expenditure, a policy which he defended so enthusiastically recently.