The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1937. “THIS ORGY OF SPENDING”

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 300, 15 September 1937, Page 10

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1937. “THIS ORGY OF SPENDING”

In its stand on the question of principle involved in the payment by the Government of subsidies to local bodies for finding enip.oyment for men on sustenance, the Hawke’s Bay County Council displayed a commendable regard for the public welfare at a time when a check is badly needed. It might easily have moved with the tide and welcomed the subsidies as “found money” and gone on with its works without concerning itself very much where that money came from, -or whether the expenditure proposed was wise or extravagant. Instead, members strongly protested against “this orgy of spending in which the taxpayers’ money was being scattered about in profusion on works of doubtful value. The question arose from a statement that a certain undertak.ng to be carried out by subsidised labour was going to cost a sum out of all proportion to the work involved. As one speaker said, the work was spread over a few hundred yards o'nly. Some corners 'might be improved and a few fillings might be necessary, but.to spend such a large sum on this road was only wasting money. Ims remark was supplemented by the chairman, Mr. F. B. Logan, in a remark that is worth Quoting:

"Many works now being undertaken,” lie said, “are an enormous waste of taxpayers’ money, and it is a question as to what extent we should lend ourselves to this orgy of spending. Is it right that because one council gets a large sum granted for useless work we should follow suit? It is wrong in principle that taxpayers’ money should be spent on unprofitable work when there is ample, useful work for those on sustenance If they care to go into the country and help the farmer. We know of farm work which is being turned down because sustenance is more desirable than work, and this will be the downfall of the country.”

It is heartening to hear of a public body refusing to take advantage of an offer to spend public money in its district because the work did not warrant the particular expenditure and amounted to the squandering of public funds. Mr. Logan’s reply to an interjection that if the council did not take the money someone else would, went straight to the point. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he„said. “If we take it we will only hasten the downfall of the country. With the present activity in trade and industry there is ■more employment, and hence a greater revenue from unemployment taxation. The obvious thing to do is to reduce the taxation. It was an emergency measure to begin with and the removal of it by degrees a process begun by the previous Government —should be regarded as an obligation. But there is not the remotest sign of anything of the kind. The Government, on the contrary, is simply wasting the taxpayers’ money in various ways and on a scale that as the facts become known must inevitably cause the strongest resentment on the part of those who have to find the money.

People paid cheerfully during the depression, but what satisfaction can it be to a wage-earner to-day to have to give up part of his earnings knowing that his money. will be squandered ? His living costs have gone up tremendously. He could do far better for himself with this money. Why, he may well ask himself, should I be forced to hand it over to keep an army of men hanging about the towns in idleness? What can he think when he reads of frauds on the funds, of men drawing sustenance money being rebuked by magistrates on the Bench for getting intoxicated on the money? Of men on sustenance who refuse work when it is offered ? Can he be blamed for drawing the conclusion that the reason why the number of men on sustenance has risen steadily till it is now over 22,000 is that they are being pampered too generously ?

The Government would be well advised to prepare itself for a public revulsion of feeling over this taxation, which is by no means unlikely, unless it revises its legislation to facilitate the employment of inefficients at wages suited to their capacities. There would be a marked change in the scene if it did this and at the same time abolished sustenance. The subsidies being offered to. local bodies enable sustenance men to be employed at a remuneration in excess of their capacity, with the result that works are being carried out at a cost which is sheer waste.