The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1937. COST AND RETURN ON PUBLIC WORKS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 8

The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1937. COST AND RETURN ON PUBLIC WORKS

Two points of more than ordinary importance were made by Mr T Hcreest M.P., in his address at Waiuku on Thursday evening. The country, he said, would want to know what return it_ would receive for the Government’s heavy expenditure on public works, and whether such works as the South Island Main Trunk rataywoud profit future generations or be a liability around their neck Later, he referred to “the amazing quantity of new machinery o American pattern to be found on public works in the North Island and asked (a) whether all this machinery was necessary; and (b) whether tenders had been called for its supply. . The highlights of Mr. Semple’s administration of public woiks have been he big expansion of the programme (necessitating heavy hrereases in staff) and mechanisation. “A more vigorous public Xks programme is one of the main planks of the Governments policy, Minister said in a statement to ? arl f ment t^°c n n^rV in took office. “It is only right that a policy involving the country in millions of expenditure should be along sound well-defined definite lines. Mv effort has been to lay down such a policy. . . . I have given much consideration to those works which, while capable of absorbing large numbers of men, give the greatest and readiest return to the State; and I have 'endeavoured by personal inspections to familiarise myself with the proposed works of this nature.’’ Mr. Hargest’s charge is that “The Minister has set out on a widely ambitious scheme, not because the country needs public works, but'because they provide a means In a comparatively prosperous time, the Public. Works Department is the most serious competitor of private industry in the labour market. Men are receiving pay that cannot be earned on uneconomic jobs. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Semple is pursuing in times of prosperity a public works policy eminently suited to times o adversity. It is a fair criticism of the late Government that it did not make the use which ought to have been made ot public woiks as a sponge to absorb labour displaced from private employment by the depression. But it is an equally fair criticism, of the present Government that in a time of prosperity, with private employers calling out for labour, the Government is employing on public works twenty thousand men—on the Minister’s own testimony the cream of constructional workers—and paying them wages which, whatever may be said to the contrary, are having the effect of drawing competent labour from the more vital national work of manning Lie farms of the country. Also, although Mr. Semple is well pleased to see his three-year plan proceeding expeditiously, it is not proceeding in such a manner as to lighten the burden on the taxpayer He proposed, in May last, an expenditure of £17,500,000 in three years. Roughly half of that amount has been spent, and almost halt, a million of it has been spent on machinery—machinery which unquestionably quickens the rate of work, but for all that may not be a sound investment. The interest on half a million at five per cent, is £25,000 a year, which the taxpayer will have to find—not to put more men in work, but to keep those already working in a position to continue to do so efficiently. At the time New Zealand was building the North Island Main Trunk railway, the United States was excavating the Panama Canal. New Zealand used for the most part picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. The United States used the most modern engineering machinery. Yet comparisons made of official engineering statistics proved that, yard for yard of spoil moved, New Zealand’s was the cheaper job. No one is much better off for the public arguments, which often develop between politicians in the recess, but that, is principally because the participants evade main issues and deal with incidentals. Mr. Hargest has raised main issues by pointing out that we are pursuing an unemployment absorption public works policy when most of the fit and competent unemployed have been absorbed,, and suggesting that we are over-mechanising our undertakings, having regard to the capital cost of the plant employed, and to the ability of the country to keep it employed economically for its full life. A reply from Mr. Semple, confining itself to those points, would be informative to the public.