A FALLEN SWORD

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 153, 14 June 1932, Page 4

A FALLEN SWORD

PUBLIC WORKS EXPENDITURE PRODIGALITY IN THE PAST. £164,000,000 IN 58 YEARS. What country could imagine itself to be possessed of such fabulous wealth that it could spend money on the construction of public undertakings at the rate of £7700 a day for 58 years? The answer is: New Zealand (says a statement by the Associated Chambers of Commerce.) • Public parades of figures shorving mounting expenditure by the State have passed completely out of fashion. Indeed, the recital now of figures relating to an earlier day is tantamount to producing a skeleton from the cupboard. Certain particulars given four years ago by Mr C. J. McKenzie, assistant engineer-in-chief of the Public Works Department, can to-day be recalled only with astonishment. The bounu were rattling then, but they wore covered by the goodly raiment of national extravagance.

Mr McKenzie, in his presidential address to the annual conference in Wellington of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers in February, 1928, is reported as having stated: ‘‘The principal public works carried out in the Dominion (since 1870) present, when summarised, quite a formidable list. By adding Government and local body expenditure, some of which is naturally a rough estimate, we have the respectable total of nearly £l6l - 000,000, made up as follows:— £ Railways •• •• »• 55,000,000 Roads (assumed) •• • • 40,000,000 Tramways •• 5,300,000 Harbours and lights . 16,000,000 Electrical undertakings .. 18,000,000 Drainage, sewerage and water supply •. - • 8,500,000 Public buildings .. >. 12,100,000 Telegraphs • > ». 8,700,000 £163,600,000 £3,000,000 PER YEAR. The expenditure up to 1928 had thus been at the rate of nearly three million a year for 58 years. The total has been increased very considerably in the last four years, but as the figures quoted were used by a responsible official, who should be in a position to speak authoritatively, they should suffice as an index. The total is colossal. The general public, accustomed to thinking in millions, may not fully grasp the significance of the expenditure. It was nearly two-thirds of the gross national debt at the end of March, 1928—namely, £251,396,252. To express it another way, the sum spent during these 58 years is equivalent to the expenditure of £lOOO dailv for 448 years.

Admittedly, all this money is not dead capital; certain of it is revenue earning, but actually which undertakings are productive would be information of great interest. They would need to be convincing figures to justify an expenditure so enormous and so completely beyond the financial capacity of the Dominion. Fixed charges on loans, a large proportion of which were lavishly spent on these public works, aro to-day bleeding the taxpayers white. The sword of Damocles, that prodigal expenditure suspended over the heads of future generations, has now fallen.

METHOD AT FAULT. It may be said that no good purpose is served by recalling at this time the extravagant expenditure of tho past, and that the present Government cannot be blamed for what was done years before it took office. On the contrary, an excellent purpose is served in recalling past follies, in order that we may not only gain perspective, but be able to apply a corrective for the future. While it is true that the present Government is not responsible for what was done before its term, nevertheless it has the corrective in its hands. It is beyond doubt that so far ns tho State is concerned, unwise expenditure on public works is wrapped up with the method by which these works have been carried out, and for this politics and politicians must bo held responsible. It was an ill-starrod day on which the system of having public works carried out by private contractors was forsaken in favour of construction by tho State. When Public Works Department monopoly came in at the door, economy flew out of the window. The Public Works Department, being without competitors, without superior check on its estimates, depending for Its very life on large ana continual expenditure, con stantly subject to political inter ference, guaranteed by the taxpayers In the event of expenditure to xny point in excess of estimates, and performing many works which should never nave been authorised Irom the point of view of their commercial soundness, has brought about an expenditure millions in excess of what was really neces sary. Not only this, but, the Public Works Department being exempt from taxation, the State has lost an inestimable income from the taxes it would have

gathered from the private firms who would otherwise have carried out the public works of the country. A COSTLY 7 MISTAKE. The real cause of tho trouble, of course, is the State system whereby construction is placed in tho hands of the Public Works Department. We have had ample time to learn how costly was the mistake and how gruelling tho experience. Tho corrective that tho present Government can apply —and the only one —is to get back to private enterprise, submit all public works to tho competition of public tendering in order tliat they may be carried out by private contract, and rtlicve tho Public Works Department of its constructional responsibility. The Associated Chambers of Commerce do not ho I the official.- n.l the Public Works Department reipmisib.e for tho unhappy state of .’’(Yairs described. They are merely the servants of their masters the politicians of tho day, who so often place expediency before efficiency.