The Ensign. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1912. PUBLIC WORKS.

Mataura Ensign, 6 November 1912, Page 4

The Ensign. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1912. PUBLIC WORKS.

The discussion in .the House of Representatives upon the Public Works Statement and Estimates gave an evidence of the difficulties which confront a Ministry pledged to economy. This word is not in the vocabulary of the average member of Parliament. For many years a sort of happy-go-lucky system of expenditure has been pursued in New Zealand. Public works of one kind and another have been started in every district, and there has been no 1 broad and comprehensive policy on the subject. The present Ministry has been 1 forced to adopt a different method. Tlift tightness of the money market at the present time renders it necessary that a considerable curtailment of expenditure shall be made. Hon. J. Allen (Minister for appealed to the patriotism of members in the debate and asked them to refrain from pressing demands until the money market had returned to normal conditions. But Mr Allen knows well that members are controlled by their constituencies in this matter. If tlhe constituencies demand the expenditure of public, money members must, if they desire to retain their seats at the next election, endeavor to carry out the mandate of their electors. Mr Allen's appeal is therefore likely to j fall upon deaf ears. If the Governmentj however, feels itself strong enough, to resist the popular desires, and confines expenditure to main roads and bridges to open up the country, while at the same time keeping railway construction to a few important lines, it will in the end have conferred an undoubted benefit upon the Dominion. As the 'Post' remarked editorially: "Long ago the people were practically encouraged to regard the Government as a perennial Santa Claus operating benignly for the faithful in a year full of Christmas Days. A lavish mode of spending was established years before Sir Joseph Ward took charge of the national purse, and he continued the system as he found it. Up and Sown the country was a clamor for all imaginable boons, to be mainly granted by increasing the national debt. This desire for expenditure at a rate far beyond the safety point has not slackened, and the new Government, committed to a policy of sane economy, has the task of persuading the people to be patient. The Government will have no peace till the present Ministerial Board-of-Works system is altered utterly, and in the meantime the Government must look t« its own strength and courage rather than rely on any pathetic appeal to the people to refrain from excessive agitation." This is an accurate statement of ' the position. A Board of Works, composed of men independent of political intrigue, and whose duty it would be to investigate all applications and recommend or reject as their judgment dictated, would to a very large extent prevent a continuation of an unsatisfactory state of affairs as regards public expenditure upon works of all kinds.