TOO MUCH SPENDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1939, Page 7

TOO MUCH SPENDING

MR W. J. POLSON’S CRITICISM. FREE EXCHANGE ADVOCATED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. At least half the decline in the finances of the country was due to overspending, Mr W. J. Polson, National Party member for Stratford, declared when speaking in the Ad-dress-in-Rcply Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday. Of the total imports of New Zealand, only about a quarter were consumer goods. It was obvious, therefore, that a reduction of imports that was efl'ective must affect most seriously those very industries, relying on imported raw materials, which the Government was so anxious to promote. Recent figures by the League of Nations showed that overspending had amounted to at least £17.000,000 sterling a year. Taxation had been increased in three years by £10,000.000 a year, and the internal debt had been added to by £55.000,000. Financial gangsters could not be blamed, as the plain fact was that the financial gangster was the Government itself. Mr Polson concluded by advocating a free exchange for New Zealand. It would mean at least 2d a lb on wool, 3d on butterfat, l.|d on lamb, and 20 per cent on all other produce, he said. It would compensate farmers and would not damage the import trade. Consumers’ costs would be largely benefited and capital would be attracted back to New Zealand.