FINANCIAL POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1939, Page 5

FINANCIAL POLICY

MR COBBE ATTACKS GOVERNMENT

' SANDBANK MISTAKEN FOR OPEN SEA.

FAILURE OF CONFERENCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day

The manner in which Ministers and members of the Government party, with the exception of Dr McMillan (Dunedin West), had avoided refer ence to financial matters in their speeches was commented on by Mr J. G. Cobbe (Opposition, Manawatu) when speaking in the Address-in Reply debate in the House of Representatives yesterday. “Ministers and their supporters have avoided finances like a floating mine,” Mr Cobbe said, “and the reason is that the Government has crashed badly on finances." Mr Cobbe said New Zealand's financial reputation, which four years ago was second to none, was today discredited in the eyes of the world The prestige of the country had gone. New Zealand’s farmers were disheartened, and overwhelmed by taxation, overhead expenses and labour difficulties. Because of the import restrictions, freights on the export of the Dominion’s produce were going to go up. and that would mean more loss to the farmers, who were also subject to increased railage charges. The farmers were very . much alarmed at the prospect 'of higher interest rates, Mr Cobbe declared. In that respect farmers and business men had been grossly misled, for the first concern in the Dominion to bring in higher interest rates had been the Government itself. The Government had boasted that it had kept interest rates down, and yet that same Govern'-* ment had actually led the way to higher rates of interest. It seemed that in New Zealand, as in Other places, plutocracy was a great attraction for Socialism, Mr Cobbe said. The Government had been rolling in money, but the man steering the ship of State had evidently mistaken a sandbank for the open sea. Capital that would have been very valuable in developing the country had been driven out of New Zealand. The Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, said there had been a concerted effort to send money out of the country to gel a better rate of intererst. It seemed a pity that the Minister had not told the whole story. He had evidently ignored the real cause of the flight of capital, which was due to want of confidence. There had been references to gangster capital, and the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, had said that the Government proposed to make greater use of the public credit. It was a pity he had not said what he really meant. Another Minister of the Crown from the public platform had said that the Government had to ensure that the toiler drew more from the national pool than the dividend king. It appeared from this that the Government regarded any man who invested money in any enterprise as an exploiter who should be made to squeal. ___________