COMMERCIAL RADIO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 263, 7 November 1939, Page 6

COMMERCIAL RADIO.

The explanations of the PostmasterGeneral as to the reasons for spending £80,000 on a commercial radio station at this time are so feeble as to be pitiful. They are calculated to increase rather than minimise public resentment at this gross extravagance. At the present time the service is housed in a modern office building; the transmission is perfectly good, and some better excuse for the erection of a palatial building for this Government enterprise is required. Inquiries suggest that if a change is desirable accommodation could be found in IYA, the modern station in Shortland Street. The only assumption tenable is that the Commercial branch desires to outdo the main national service in the magnificence of its headquarters. At a time when the country is taxed directly or indirectly beyond the limit ol' it-s capacity, ostensibly to permit of the Dominion worthily shouldering its portion of tlm Empire's war burden, this blatant gesture assumes the proportions of a major scandal. The public is entitled to wonder whether the Government has the faintest appreciation of what the war means, and of the sacrifice that confronts this country if our race is to emerge successfully from the test of endurance and spirit that is certainly in store for all of us. While the Government should be busy fanning the flame of national patriotism it is, if we may judge bj- the callous waste that this project represents, engaged in devising methods of squandering the people's money.