MR SEMPLE REPLIES.

Evening Star, Issue 22630, 23 April 1937, Page 8

MR SEMPLE REPLIES.

In an address in the north a few days ago Mr J. Hargest, M.P., dealt with a statement by the Hon. R. Semple to the effect that he had arranged to spend £10,000,000- on public works this year and probably an increased amount next year. The member for Awarua expressed alarm at the pile of debts that the Minister was accumulating, remarking that it was a mortgage against the future, and an unborn generation would be saddled with liabilities that it might be unable to meet. Another complaint was that in a comparatively prosperous time the Public Works Department is the most serious competitor of private industry in the labour market. Reference was also made by the speaker to the amazing quantity of new machinery of American pattern to be found on public works in the North Island. He asked whether it was necessary, and whether tenders had been called or an order simply handed to a private concern. Mr Semple has replied to these criticisms in characteristic fashion. No one doubts the Minister’s sincerity, industry, and determination, but it does not follow that his judgment is always right. There is a suggestion of infallibility in the remarks of some of the Ministers, and they seem to be particularly sensitive to comments that are in opposition to their plans and ideas. In a democratic country such as this the personal element should be ignored, and from all parties there should be expected reasoned speeches free from recriminatory outbursts. The Minister rightly resents the reported suggestion of Mr Hargest that his public works policy is inspired by a desire for personal glory. That is beside the point altogether. What the pfcple of the Dominion are concerned about is the wisdom or otherwise of the Government’s plans. Mr Semple pays a tribute to the efficiency of his department and the industry of the men employed on various works, and asserts that the cost of'constmction has decreased. That is very satisfactory. A point that raises doubts is in relation to the economic aspects of some of the major enterprises that have been put in hand. The question of. railway construction obtrudes itself at once. Mr Semple justifies the Government’s decision to complete various unfinished lines. Special reference is made to the South Island Main Trunk Railway, which, though greatly favoured by Sir Joseph Ward, was determined by the Coalition Government after the consideration of much expert advice to be uneconomic, and work on it was discontinued. Mr Semple roundly condemns the late Government for abandoning this and other lines. The Coalition Ministry, however, was faced with conditions greatly different from those that prevailed when the routes were surveyed and construction work put in hand. The coming of the motor vehicle altered the whole position. As a result the issue narrows itself down to a matter of policy. The Forhes-Coates Ministry believed that it was better to abandon enterprises that must prove uneconomic and redundant, while the course adopted by the present Cabinet means throwing good money after bad. In his criticisms of the last Administration

Mr Semple entirely ignores the vital fact that, as a result of the slump, it was at its wits’ end to find the money necessary to carry on the essential business of the country. To-day there is a great and beneficial change in matters of finance, for which Ministers cannot take credit. The Minister justifies his actions so far as the actual purchases of machinery are conerned, much that was bought from America being of a typo that was not obtainable in the Empire. He explains that his keenness for mechanisation is based on the grounds of efficiency and economy, but it cannot. be denied that the increased use of labour-saving devices has added to the difficulties of solving the unemployment problem. In his condemnation of the Coalition Government Mr Semple is unnecessarily vehement. It is not to be supposed that all the virtue and efficiency and sympathy with the distressed are on one side of the House of Representatives.