Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1928. POWER BOARD LOAN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 157, 14 April 1928, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1928. POWER BOARD LOAN.

With the approach, of polling day in connection with the Ashburton Power Board’s loan proposal the ratepayers will be giving more and more earnest consideration of the question how their votes shall be cast. The aggregate sum involved is so great that the undertaking is not to be entered upon lightly, without due regard to all the factors in the case. In all loan proposals there are two main aspects—national and local. As regards the first, the ratepayer has to decide .whether the financial and material position of the Dominion warrants an increase in public indebtedness, for though an internal loan differs from an external one in that the interest does not go outside the country, it nevertheless has the effect of diverting the flow of money from channels in which it would assist directly in the development of industry. The great increase in national indebtedness from £150,000,000 at the end of the war to £245,000,000 has given rise to grave concern among serious students of finance. This concern is based on the fact that notwithstanding the indications that the overseas trade of the Dominion has “turned the corner” and that prospects in that direction are reassuring, the commitments constitute a steady demand on our resources and that the balance is so fine that any untoward happening may destroy it. This is apparently the thought underlying Mr W. Downie Stewart’s statement: “We are at present paying to* the war, and we have consequently less, margin to cover the cost of capital expenditure that is financially unproductive. In other words, the country is not so well off as.it was, and we must exercise greater prudence.” Greater prudence —that should be the keynote for the whole Dominion. Admittedly a young country must have capital for development, but like a growing hoy, it must he careful not to presume on the recuperative powers of youth and so be led into the mistake of overtaxing its strength. And in this matter of electrical development there is a tendency to overweight the country with loan expenditure. There are in' the- Dominion forty-two power boards with loans totalling no less than £11,067,000, equal to £l3 2s per man, woman and child in the country. Supporters of the Ashburton loan no doubt will reply that electrical development is essential to the prosperity of the country and that loan expenditure on such is reproductive. That is true, however, only up to a point. In manufacturing centres the new power may be reproductive by cheapening the cost of production, and to a limited degree that is also true in respect to dairying districts. But in a district mainly occupied m grazing ' and cropping, as is the Ashburton County, this factor loses much of its weight. Admittedly, improvement in the conditions'of living* in the country has a hearing on production, but such improvement must he brought about by a number of factors. In the majority of cases the use of

electricity on the farms of this County is more a matter of luxury than of actual advantage and benefit in working' the land. Its use is largely for lighting-, cooking, and such domestic purposes, all of which lighten the work of the household. But there is a limit heyond which the provision of such facilities imposes burdens in other directions, and it is open to grave question whether that point has not been reached here. Electricity has not caused the sheep to grow an ounce more wool or the grain to put forth another ear, and comfort _ may be bought at too high a price.