INCREASED DEBT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 81, 4 March 1935, Page 8

INCREASED DEBT

THE PUBLIC SERVICES. COUNTIES’ HIGH FIGURES.* AUCKLAND, Alarcli 2, Striking figures showing tho increases on net loan indebtedness of various public services in New Zealand were given by Air D. Holderness, engineer to the Auckland Harbour Board, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers. Air Holderness said that between 1900 and 1932 the population of tho Dominion had increased from 808,132 to 1,533,709. In the same period the net indebtedness of the general government had increased from £46,930,000 to £279,507,000, an advance of 595 per cent. That of counties had increased from £6900 to £4,443,000, a growth of no less than 64,401 per cent. Boroughs’ indebtedness had shown an increase of 1003 per cent., rising from £2,939,000 to £29,505,000, while harbour boards’ indebtedness had increased front £3,845,000 to £10,422,000, an increase of 271 per cent. The net indebtedness of oilier local bodies had increased from £8,149,000 to £72,402,000, representing 888 per cent. Air Holderness suggested that with so many harbour boards operating in* New Zealand and under prevailing methods of administration and control, it might reasonably be expected that there had been excessive expenditure in the provision of harbour facilities. There had been cases where works had been inaugurated obviously beyond the requirements of the district served. However, ns the figures indicated, expenditure on harbour works in general in New Zealand, in comparison with other public services, had not been us much out of proportion to the growth of population and trade as might have been anticipated. Air Holderness said it was not suggested that a heavy increase in loan indebtedness was necessarily an indication of uneconomic expenditure. In the case of harbour boards a by no means inconsideiable proportion of the increased capital expenditure was represented by direct revenue-producing assets in the form of reclaimed land and buildings.