DEVELOPMENT OF COAST

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29108, 21 January 1960, Page 5

DEVELOPMENT OF COAST

“Economy Needs Stimulation”

“The West Coast has to be stimulated in some way or other. It needs economic stimulation over the whole area.” These were the parting words of the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Anderton) before leaving Greymouth yesterday morning. “The people of Greymouth are as entitled to as high a standard of living as those, like myself, in Auckland,” said the Minister. “We have to find a sufficiency of industry to maintain the working population and to meet all the contingencies of the capital expenditure that has gone on on the Coast in the past,” he continued.

‘‘The only way to do that is to have a very forward-looking policy for the future; and it has to be planned,” said the Minister.

“I am positive that the Government will do everything it can to see to it that the Coast is injected with the right sort of economic development, and I know that this has been one of the concerns of the Prime Minister (Mr Nash) for some considerable time.

“The difficulty of course is to find an industry to come here and justify the capital expenditure involved,” he said. “As you know an industry that manufactures goods for a market likes to establish very close to the principtal buying market to save as much as possible of the freight charges, which tend to put up the cost of the manufactured goods and weaken its trading position in the competitive sphere. “I think the Government will be able to overcome these difficulties but it can do so only with the full co-operation of every citizen of Westland and every municipality. They have to get behind us and if they do we can do anything we like with the West Coast. They are fine people here.”

A London life guard received an award worth £1 for saving a drowning ’woman and a £5 award for saving her dog at the same time.