PUBLIC WORKS AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 20

PUBLIC WORKS AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TRESS. Sir, —Your reply, per footnote, to my letter is really not a You state that you believe in planning public works and carrying them through to completion.. The .Coalition Government planned and carried through to completion Middleton Yard. I am a regular reader of your paper and as this job was carried out in Canterbury, and you would have full knowledge as to the wisdom or otherwise of this part of the Coalition Governments policy. I am here quoting only one blunder, among many, it made. Have you in your editorial column criticised its policy in planning and building the railway yard? If you maintain that future historians will consider the Coalition Government universally economical, then you mean by that its policy was so sound that we should have had more of it. The last Government planned to borrow money, then it planned to spend it, and its ability to plan, in another word, govern, is portrayed in the result of such planning. You mention the advisability of setting up a board to carry out a public works policy. Well, “why bring that up?” Have we not learned from past experience that the fewer boards we have, the better? The Labour Government has pot borrowed overseas one cent and is carrying out the largest public works programme this country has known. There is not one job being put through to-day that is not justified, and I venture to say each and every one will be completed. The work is necessary, and is planned to be a national asset. At the same time, it is providing work for thousands of men providing them, their wives, and families with a decent standard of living. If the Public Works Department was placed under board control what guarantee could you or anyone else give that it would be capable of planning successfully. The board would be answerable to the Government only, but the Government would have to answer to the people. I am not so certain that a .board would function under a Labour Government to the satisfaction of the Nationalists and even to you. You will have to rake out something more concrete than the suggestion of a board to justify your criticism of the Government s public works policy, and it really would make for better reading if only occasionally you would devote a little space in your leading article columns to give credit to Labour for some or its wise legislation. You will saytnat occasionally you do agree. Well, along with other readers, consider that you could be and should be a little more generous.-Yours.

Oaro, July 27. 1938. [Our correspondent flatteringly credits us with an omniscience to which we lay no claim. If we did n °t criticise the construction of the Middleton yards, we certainly did not defend it. Had a non-political board of public works experts been in existence the Middleton yards would probably never have been built. We frequently criticised previous governments for not comprehensively planning public works and embarking upon them without thorough investigation. Labour policy in practice has not opposed the appointment of boards, as the actions of the present Government have disclosed. _ Our correspondent places an interpretation on our references to the last Government’s economy which may suit his purposes but has no relation to our meaning.—Ld.. me Press."]