PUBLIC WORKS AND INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 68, 13 December 1938, Page 10

PUBLIC WORKS AND INDUSTRY

Better Balance Needed

RELEASE OF MEN FOR

FARM WORK

Greater Local Production

The need for a better balance between public works and industry was referred to by the Piiine Minister, Mr. Savage, when asked in an interview last evening if the Government’s scheme of industrial expansion was expected , to result in a simultaneous tapering-off of public works activities. He said that steps already had been taken to release men on public works for work on farms constituted a definite move in this direction. “We have to get a better balance between public works and secondary industry,” said Mr. Savage. “Io the extent that we can take men from public works and put them into industry that will be done. Secouuary industries will have to be built in any case. If we can’t get men from public works we will have to get them elsewhere. The secondary industries of the Dominion must be developed to obiair. that better balance. “I am not one who thinks that, money has been wasted on public works. It is apparent that vaiues have been created every minute by ex* penditure on public works. Wages received by public works men are spent in buying the necessaries of lite, and there are thousands of things not produced in New Zealand that have to be imported from abroad. That is the story in a nutshell. Our job is to get a' better balance. "We have to have more done in the way of secondary production, or an extension of primary production, or both. By the expansion of exports we achieve in respect to the conservation ot overseas credits the same result as is achieved by an expansion of secondary industry. “The Minister of Public Works has already indicated that where men on public works can be used for farm work they will be made available. That is a definite move in the direction I have indicated. Ministers of the Crown and officials are very active at the present time in getting the whole situation more evenly balanced, and whatever problems exist will have to be removed.”

Asked if the measures designed to improve the balance between public works and industry were likely to involve the curtailment of any major public works undertaking, Mr. Savage said that all these works would be completed. “We are not stopping them,” lie added.