THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1932 THE DAY OF OPPORTUNITY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 160, 22 June 1932, Page 6

THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1932 THE DAY OF OPPORTUNITY.

In yesterday’s issue was reprinted from an Australian exchange the report of a broadcast delivered by Mr. R. J. Lyons, the Commonwealth Prime Minister, and containing some very sound advice which we here in New Zealand might very well lay both to heart and to mind. His theme was “the reabsorption of men into industry,” and his appeal was to all those who had funds, large or small, that might be applied in the way of assisting to provide employment for willing hands at present idle. Conditions there and here are quite near enough the same to make what he had to say for Australia applicable to this country also. The burden of his message was that the worst stage of the crisis, if not actually passed, was gradually being left behind, and that what was wanted was that good citizens should now take their courage in both hands and let loose such financial resurces as might be at their command. There can be no doubt whatever as to the mutual advantage that would accrue, and the widespread beneficial result that would be effected were this eminently sane suggestion generally adopted. In the flush years of and after the war, when prices were at their peak, we were all eager to get into the swim. It is, indeed, in no small measure to the sinking of good money and good credit during a lengthy period of obviously inflated values that much of our internal distress is to be attributed. Now, when prices are down, labour more than plentiful and opportunity crying out to be accepted, when, in short, we can “get in on the ground floor,” j there is nothing but timidity and hesitancy. It is really in times like the present, when all history tells us the tide must be about on the turn, that capital outlay gives promise of its best rewards, not only in the way of return to those who invest it, but also in the way of doing good service to fellow men. Thus, like the quality of mercy, it is twice blessed, inasmuch as it works both to the profit as the investor and to the relief of the worker.

In Australia this phase of the troubles we have been going through has been recognised by the banking institutions, and it is advisedly with the purpose of forcing money into industrial channels that they have brought down the interest rates payable on the fixed deposits made with them. They feel that they have for quite long enough accepted the responsibility for reinvesting the many millions thus entrusted to their care, and call upon the actual owners to come out and do

their duty to themselves and to the community. There can scarcely be any fairer sign than this that those who ought to know best regard the worst as over and have every confidence in the future. Despite all the mistaken ideas that are held by so many, the banks are just as interested as any to promote the return to prosperity, and this is one of the means they take for effecting that purpose.

Nor is it only investment money in the big that can be profitably employed just now. While thriftiness and the preservation of the nest egg are always to be applauded, true economJ does not consist alone in the him ing of money away in the family stocking, but rather in putting it to some good use. There is not likely to recur again for many years a time at which so much may be got for small expenditure. This may be said not only with regard to the direct employment of labour in, say, starting or extending in a modest way undertakings likely to develop, or in improvements or renovations to homes, or in anything of a like character. It may be said also with regard to providing or renewing household and personal requirements of all kinds. It may be taken with absolute assurance that the chances for doing this at small cost are just now such as do not offer excepting at rare intervals. And, then, every pound thus spent, especially upon local products, will go to help in providing work for the now workless. To-day, notwithstanding its seeming gloomy aspect, is really the day of opportunity. Unless the almost constant experience of the long past is to be belied, the cycle has just about turned full round from the days of an overrank prosperity and must soon be on the upward turn again.