The Dominion. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1936. PUBLIC WORKS EXPENDITURE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 10

The Dominion. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1936. PUBLIC WORKS EXPENDITURE

In its main features the statement presented to Parliament by the Minister of Public Works yesterday reproduces the policy pronouncements made by him from time to time since he assumed office. It therefore contained no surprises for the House. The expenditure proposed for the current year is 18,543,700, of which the Budget told us £5,940,000 is to be borrowed (but not from the public). Public Wdrks loan expenditure in 1919 was £1,400,000. It climbed, with three falling intervals of varying depth, to £8,388,529 in 1931. From this high point it dropped almost like a stone to £1,727,076 in 1933. With the gradual passing of the depression, it began to rise slowly, touching £2,484,561 in the financial year ended March 31, 1936. Now it is proposed to increase loan expenditure in one year by almost as much as the increase between 1919 and 1922, the years of the great post-war boom, when millions were spent on reabsorbing returned soldiers into civilian life. It may be argued that expenditure of somewhat similar dimensions is justified by the comparable necessity of reabsorbing tfie unemployed army of the slump period, but in the field of public works it seems , likely that the number of men to be so benefited, in proportion to the number out of regular employment and to the expenditure proposed, .will be small, because the use of labour-saving machinery is part of Mr. Semple’s policy. He aims to provide employment for 20,000 men; but how loyg will he be able to maintain them at the standard rates adopted? It is not as if the Government were economising in other directions. Expenditure is going'up all found. A Govefnment more experienced in finance would have shrunk from attempting so much at so great a cost, in so short a time, and so soon after an economic cataclysm that almost bankrupted the country’s resources.