The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1929. THE WAIL OF A PESSIMIST.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 255, 28 October 1929, Page 6

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

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1929. THE WAIL OF A PESSIMIST.

i« ■ * for Wk« oauae that lack* assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And th* good that we can do.

The President of the New Zealand Employers' Federation delivered his annual address at Wellington on Wednesday, and anybody who attended the meeting in the expectation of deriving from the Hon. T. S. Weston's remarks any encouragement or hope for the future must have come away grievously, disappointed. For Mr. Weston can see little prospect of any substantial or permanent improvement in the industrial and commercial and financial condition of this unfortunate country, and from his point of view the outlook for us all is depressing in the extreme. He admits that, as the statistics published by banks and insurance companies prove, wealth is piling up in quite unprecedented fashion in New Zealand. But he warns us solemnly that the prices of our principal products are predestined to fall, and he draws a harrowing picture of the. Dominion as it will be when there are no more productive public works to construct and "seventeen thousand men will be required to be absorbed in private avenues of employment."

At first sight it may seem difficult to account for the unrelieved gloom that pervades Mr. Weston's survey of our industrial and financial prospects. Why should he believe that, contrary to all human experience, wealth will continue to pile up in the banks without following the irresistible law that has always hitherto forced it in the long run into the most profitable channels? Why should he fix an arbitrary limit to the number and character of the public enterprises that the State.may legitimately undertake for the enrichment of the country ? And how, if we have all thio money to invest, and a country with immense natural resources to work upon, can he convince himself that our capacity for wealth production is prematurely exhausted and that there is nothinf before the people of New Zealand but industrial paralysis and financial ruin, Avith the spectral shadow of Unemployment looming ominously across an ever-darkening future?

Of course, it would take volumes to answer Mr. "Weston in full, and we do not propose to undertake the task. But Ave are interested enough in his woeful predictions to ask how he has come to argue himself into this deplorable frame of mind, and he has obligingly supplied us with an- answer. It is all the fault of the Graduated Land Tax, that iniquitous impost levied by an unscrupulous and tyrannical legislature upon the innocent and selfsacrificing landed proprietor. By the time one has reached this point in Mr. Weston's argument one has the key to the whole situation. All these lamentations over the present and future of New Zealand, all these lachrymose prophecies of even worse things to befall us in the evil days to come, are simply a variation on the well-worn theme that Mr. Coates and his "'Miserere" chorus were intoning with such dismal persistence through the small hours in Wellington during the past week—"pity the sorrows, of the poor landowner." "When one grasps this essential fact, all that is left for us is to offer Mr. Weston "the compliments of our condolence." A pessimist has been defined as someone who has been compelled to live with an optimist. Perhaps if Mr. Weston had not been associated so long with the Reformers, and had not been accustomed to assume that his political party

woiild always have its own way, and that everything would continue to be for the best in the best possible of worlds for the landowner, he might have spared us his jeremiad of last Wednesday.

PARTIES AND POST OFFICE. The usual atmosphere of such a gathering as the annual reunion of post and telegraph employees on Saturday is one of optimistic good-felloAvship. "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" sets the tone, and everything in the garden is pronounced lovely. At this particular gathering, however, the Mayor of Newmarket threw into the assembly our old friend the apple of discord in the shape of an expression of opinion that the salary "cut" should be restored, coupled with the unkind remark that the present Government was run by its Departmental heads. People will ask what particular qualifications Mr. Donaldson has for expressing an opinion on this question. Is he fully acquainted with the financial difficulties of the Government? Mr. Stallworthy's reply was pointed and deserved —that the only thing to do would be to refer the matter to the Newmarket Borough Council—and Mr. Holland drove the shaft home. Representatives of all parties assured the P. and T. employees that they sympathised with them. This : may be taken for granted. Every party -would like to better.the position of men in this service, or any ; service. It is a question of finance. Though the Government is unable to restore the' "cuts," it is doing what it can by reclassifying the service.

THE WALL STREET PANIC. It is very difficult at this distance to get bny accurate idea of the financial crisis which during the past week shook Wall Street to its foundations. Tlie. view expressed by the Treasury., officials, who attrib'uate the paiiie chiefly to "over-expansion" and "speculative excesses," is probably correct, and the representatives of the principal banks agree ; that the disturbance is merely superficial and has .not reached down to the roots of American industrial and commercial prosperity. No doubt the disorder was serious while it lasted, and probably a great many people have lost heavily; But crises are periodic in all money markets, and in a country so wealthy and so much enamoured of ff get-rich-quick" methods as America, such chronic dislocations of credit and finance leave few permanent ill-effect* behind them..