The Press Monday, September 22, 1930. The Outlook.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20039, 22 September 1930, Page 10

The Press Monday, September 22, 1930. The Outlook.

It will not surprise anyone that Sir Otto Niemeyer, in an interview in this issue, expresses confidence in the Dominion's economic position. We are not bankrupt, wo are not threatened with bankruptcy, no one with any kind of authority to speak has ever suggested that bankruptcy is possible. We cannot therefore regard Sir Otto's hopeful words as a reprieve from sentence of disgraco or death, or even as a solvent of deep-rooted fears. We should, however, accept them as definitely encouraging, and as a cheering reminder of the factors contributing to our security. Sir Otto tells us quite frankly that we shall have to adjust ourselves, nationally and individually, to a fallen, and perhaps still falling, level of prices for our staple products; he does not know, or pretend to know, when the conditions on which our pr-os-perity depends will improve; and he warns us that, when the improvement does begin, recovery will be slow. But he sees and says, and it is distinctly stimulating to have it said by so high an authority, that our foundations are secure, and that "there is no occasion "for anyone to get-down in the mouth "in New Zealand " by brooding over the situation in Australia. Australia has two or three strings to her bow; we have half a dozen. She has been able to be extravagant on a grand scale; we only in foolish little bursts and starts. There are seven Governments in Australia against our one, and nearly seven times as many difficulties in arranging for a united effort. Every individual in Australia is ruled by two Governments. Everyone is liable to be carried away by national pride and by continental vaingloriousness. But although our country is smaller and safer, though our crops seldom fail and our size seldom allows us to run so far off the rails, we have not been told by Sir Otto Niemeyer that there is nothing to do but wait for the turn of the tide. There are almost as many things to be done here, in relation to the size of our problem, as there are in Australia. We have to reduce our costs, eliminate the worst of our extravagances, Work harder, produce more to balance the fallen prices, perhaps—it is a little too soon to say—content ourselves with a slower rate of development. We have to master our transport problem, however unpleasant it may be, and whatever opposition there- may be on noneconomic grounds. We have to be more cautious about borrowing. We have to give greater elasticity to the relations between capital and labour, with or without the assistance of the Arbitration Court. More than anything else, we have to make it possible for the farmer to get his work done, and stop paying men higher wage's for doing useless things than good men earn on the essential tasks of production.. Although, as Sir Otto says, Australia's adjustments will have to be "much more drastic than those neces"sary in the Dominion," we must not even begin to think that we can be prosperous again , without making painful sacrifices.