SOCIALIST “CHICKS.”

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10826, 24 March 1932, Page 3

SOCIALIST “CHICKS.”

Pour decades ago New Zealand took no little pride in the notice accorded by much older countries in what were then experiments in socalled Socialistic legislation. Then was instituted Governmental relief of poverty in old age, Governmental loans to establish small farmers on the land, State experiments to compete with trading concerns to which any suspicion of exploitation attached (says the Dunedin Star). The administration of the newly-estab-lished State activities required the creation of Government departments' in addition to those existing, and these spending and trading departments required staffs. lliese two sources of public expenditure have in the long interval gone on expanding side by side. The expansion of the one involved the expansion of the other. Available finance only dictated the limit. It has been reached and passed. Unless New Zealand's revenue shows unexpected prompt .recovery of buoyancy, the saving in expenditure proposed would he less than a third of vhat would be required to make the Budget balance. But the Herculean task of regaining Budget equilibrium is considered unattainable in the brief space of one year. It will be observed that the present is only an interim report.