The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1928. A LITTLE COMMON SENSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 258, 31 October 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1928. A LITTLE COMMON SENSE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can do.

There has been a great deal of loose talk about the proposal to arrange for the borrowing of £.70,000,000, extending over a period of eight to ten years. Politicians -whose ignorance of finance has prevented them commenting on any proposal even remotely connected with the subject in the House have blatantly condemned the idea on the hustings; and even those who should know better have talked foolishly of a policy of "boom, borrow and bust." In big business in America to-day, where sums running into tens of millions sterling are needed for a settled policy of development, it is quite usual to arrange for the total amount required at the outset at a fixed rate of interest. If fifty millions are needed to carry out a programme calculated to extend over five years, the progressive interest bill is known from the beginning and provision made accordingly. The crux of the matter is that the money should be spent in a manner that will commensurately develop the business of the borrowing corporation. Similarly in national affairs, it is advisable to make provision well ahead when a policy can be justified. In this Dominion, after a decade and a-half of a Government without a land policy, no intelligent person can contend that money spent on developing the latent resources of the country would not be well spent. A Minister who believes that the development of small areas has reached a point of saturation is a very real disaster to the future of this Dominion. When we find that there is a steady drift of the population from the rural industries we realise the lack of vision and poverty of statesmanship associated with the present Government. Anyone who reads the history of this country is at once struck with the fact that the Reform Party to-day are the legitimate successors of the Atkinson Government and its predecessors, and that their subservience to the larger landed interests is taking us back where we were nearly thirty years ago. In a sound land policy lies the salvation of New Zealand, and if it is to be effected under a rational and well-defined policy of borrowing the money will be well spent. A haphazard policy of borrowing, almost equal in amount, based on the political exigencies of the situation at the time, having for its object the maintenance of the emoluments of the party in power, can only lead to disaster. So far this is all that Reform has offered us, and it is in a desperately poor position to criticise a proposal that has as its fundamental principle a vigorous development of the natural resources of the country. If electors will only think they will realise how true this is.