GOVERNMENT FLAYED.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18876, 21 February 1933, Page 6

GOVERNMENT FLAYED.

THE EXCHANGE RATE.

MR. STALLWORTHY’S ATTACK.

“PEOPLE DELIBERATELY' ROBBED”

AUCKLAND, Tuesday. An explanation of his resignation from the Coalition Party and an indictment of the Government was made by Mr. A. J. Stallworthy, M.P., In an address last evening. The greater part of his speech was devoted to a condemnation of the increase in the rate of exchange. The large audience was presided over toy Mr. J. Caughley. The raising of the exchange rate, said Mr. Stallworthy, was the coping stone of the Government’s policy of ruin pursued in the past 15 months. He had protested all along, but no heed .had been given his representations, so he decided to resign. During the whole period that he was a member of the Coalition Party, not In the case of one solitary measure submitted to Parliament by the Government were members of the Government party consulted. Sometimes tho measures were dictated by forces outside Parliament, and the first they would be told was that a measure would be introduced by GovernorGeneral’s Message.

It was no light thing to do anything that might disturb the stability of a Government, but the time arrived when one had no alternative. The announcement on January 20 of tho increase in the exchange rate was a complete volte face on the part of the Government. Every member of the Government and every person in New Zealand had been betrayed by this reversal of policy. They had been deliberately robbed of £25 out of every £IOO.

Mr. Stallworthy said the increase in the rate amounted to a present of several thousands of pounds a year to a number of sheepowners. Some were not content to wait a year. “ There is always that inner circle that gets information straight from the horse’s mouth,” he added. “As a New Zealander I am ashamed to have to say it, but while some of you slept on the night of the 19th and the morning of the 20th there were men in New Zealand who made scores of thousands of pounds because they knew the rate of exchange was going to be raised. If I were the Government to-morrow I would have a Royal Commission set up to reveal who made these fortunes.

Change of Government Needed. “ For the first time in our history we are budgeting in cold blood and deliberately for a deficit; not a small one, but a deficit of £4,000,000. We are drifting no longer. We have been treacherously plunged into a position of bankruptcy involving your honour and mine. If it were to accomplish any good I would not mind so much, although it would be bad enough, but its utter futility is what maddens me. It can spell nothing but utter ruin.” Mr. Stallworthy said that while Mr. MacDonald, Prime Minister of Britain, was doing his utmost to save civilisation from a terrible war that would obliterate everyone, New Zealand was being driven by the hands of a few greedy rural interests. The position was terrible. Britain at last had had to discipline New Zealand. It had come like a bolt from the blue —the suggestion from London that restrictions should be placed upon the quantities of New Zealand butter entering the British market. They were told the communications were unofficial, hut they could take it from him that they had the authority of the British Government behind them, and they were not the last word.

The policy the New Zealand Government was pursuing was utterly and irretrievably hopeless. The interests of the Dominion demanded a change of policy and a change of Government. There was no vestige of hope for the country as long as the present leaders were in power.

A vole reaffirming confidence in Mr. Stallworthy as member of Parliament for tiie Eden electorate was carried.