NOT WARTIME ECONOMY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 3, 3 July 1940, Page 6

NOT WARTIME ECONOMY

When the Government announced that work on Broadcasting House and other radio improvement buildings would be stopped the decision was commended —though we asked if all works were to be placed on the same oasis. Now it appears that they are not. The commercial broadcasting project at Auckland (costing £60,000) and ttie Internal Marketing building in Auckland (costing £100,000) are to be carried on. Emphatically this cannot be considered a real application of wartime economy., The commercial broadcasting project is just luxury, and Auckland opinions offer no justification for the Internal Marketing building. When the war conditions are so serious as to lead the Government to the drastic financial courses outlined in the Budget, this kind of "business as usual" stands condemned. It is a contradiction of the call the Minister of Finance has made in the strongest terms for sacrifice. The private citizen will conclude that he is to make the sacrifice while the Government carries on.

The statement of the Minister of Housing that there will be no slackening of house construction also calls for comment. Whatever merits there may be in the housing construction, it cannot be denied that the Government's taxing and borrowing proposals will greatly reduce the capacity of the average citizen to build for himself. But there is to be no slackening of the State activity. We do not say that the housing, programme should be stopped, but when the private citizen is forced by war measures to defer even house repairs, renovations, arid maintenance, the State should give a decided lead by modification of its own plansw