FUNDS NOT RUNNING SHORT. SAYS MR. CHRISTIE

Northern Advocate, 30 November 1937, Page 8

FUNDS NOT RUNNING SHORT. SAYS MR. CHRISTIE

[Per Press Association. — Copyright.'] WELLINGTON. This Day. Several speakers took part on the discussion of the Public Works Statement yesterday before the House of Representatives went into committee to consider the estimates. Mr E. P. Meachen (Government— Wairau) considered that Mr Hamilton was labouring under a confusion complex. He considered the Opposition should have had no difficulty in understanding the Public Works Statement. Quite a lot of the works, although lumped under one heading, were the responsibility of Ministers other than the Minister of Public Works. For instance, the Public Works figures of £17,367,000 included all works undertaken by the Government, such as railway improvements, school buildings, small farms, telegraph extensions, native land settlement and swamp drainage.

Expenditure on public works out of loan money was only half this year what it had been in 1929-30. He congratulated the Minister of Public Works on the introduction of the 40hour week for Public Works employees and stated that the Minister intended, under his five-year plan, to give almost every backblock settler a good metalled road within that period.

Surprise for Opposition

Mr H. M. Christie (Government — Waipawa) said it must have surprised and annoyed members of the Opposition that the funds were not running short for the Government. It must also have annoyed them that they had failed to stampede depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank before the last elections and any such attempt must inevitably fail in future. Mr H. G. Dickie (Opposition— Patea) expressed the opinion that the Government was spending too much on deviations and other works on main, highways. Ho thought the tendency was to make the roads into speedways for the ever-increasing power of motor vehicles. In criticising various parts of the railway construction programme, he considered that the new portion of the. South Island Main Trunk railway would not pay axle grease when completed. A lot of money being spent on Public Works was not being well spent.