FACING THE RESULTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 109, 11 May 1939, Page 12

FACING THE RESULTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The condition of chaos into which the country's affairs have been allowed to drift since the inauguration of the Labour Socialist Party's policy of "spend for prosperity" is becoming so serious that the ordinary citizen is now wondering what our omnipotent Government is going to do about it.

I fear that most members of the Cabinet must be having some wakeful, nights wondering how their accumulated common sense could have got them into the present deplorable mess. Judging by the Prime Minister's impotent appeal to a deputation last week, after assuring the deputation that the Government had fully con* sidered the position and had taken steps to correcs it, he invited them to show him a better way to deal with the disappearance of funds from the Dominion's purse. You will have observed that up to this point it had not occurred to him to shut the purse. Future deputations should note that when he is confronted with an awkward question the Prime Minister usually backs out by asking another question, and so "passes the buck," and he seems to get away with it. . *

It is the Government's obvious "duty to direct and control the country's affairs on the same lines that a business man or company conducts a business. To this end a business man acquires a knowledge of his business, and through his experiences in doing so attains wisdom in business affairs, and by the prudent application of those qualities the success of his business is assured. The Government realises that it has made a colossal mistake in following Socialistic theories in government, and if the clock could be put back three years I would imagine they would steer a more prudent course. The old axiom that "people should learn to save before they are allowed to spend," particularly other people's money, is in this instance appropriate.

After a lifetime spent in business I am more than ever convinced that it requires business experience to handle business affairs, and if we are suffering from a lack of business acumen in government, it is what a majority of electors voted for. The plain fact is that the Government is not big enough to undo the foolish things they did in the exuberance of the first flush of victory. If instead of stumping the country inviting people to increase production, the Government restored the 44-hbur week, they would get more immediate production and make the people happier. , No one wants to cut wages, but it is not common sense to expect forty-four hours' production in forty hours of working time, nor to expect costs and selling prices to remain the same. We have twenty-odd thousand men employed on public works at full standard wages and over constructing unproductive, costly, and unnecessary "assets." Hundreds of these young men should have been sent back to the farms, the factories, and the workshops two years ago when farmers and manufacturers were crying out for them, but no one wouid listen; the sky was the limit. It is not too late yet to save a headlong financial slide if the Government will drastically curtail expenditure on unproductive luxuries and get men in.o reproductive employment. There are too many drones in the hive. The money that has "left" New Zealand hasbeen chased out; what we had in the stocking has been squandered, and we have borrowed more than our credit warrants. If this is prosperity and security, then, to borrow a'phrase from Mr. Nash, "the price is too high. —I am, etc., HORSE-SENSE.