VAST AND IMPORTANT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 3 October 1924, Page 7

VAST AND IMPORTANT

NEW ZEALAND'S ECONOMIC PROB LEMS

EXCESSIVE BORROWING POLICY •

(By Telegraph.—Special to The Mail.) !

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

Willi the aid of many lantern slides of very jagged looking charts Professor J. B. Coii.iiiiYe delivered a paper on the effect of changing price levels on the economic development of New Zealand, to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. The general trend of the professor's remarks was to the effect that prices nowadays were moving downward and if-the present outlook in Europe were any criterion it was reasonable to suppose that. tin 1 imports would fall helow (lie exports in the next few years. Germany only wanted suUieieiit capital to flood the world markets with cheap materials. The speaker thought that very shortly New Zealand would approach a similar period to what slit l went through in 1870. With ; diagrams the professor pointed out. that in New Zealand to-day building mat.ert- 1 als are extremely higl’i. "It makes one pause to think"* he said, "vvehlher the Government's policy of loans is the cheapest after all. Erom about 1910 New Zea- 1 land has indulged in a. borrowing policy : which I think is excessive and has re-j suited in an overhead burden that the country has (o pay. At the present tune (lie expenditure on public works is more excessive in New Zealand now than at aiiy lime, and it is too much j like the early period of 1870 for which the. country had to-pay by a long period of depression. After 1870 land fell each year until 1895, and it did not reach the previous level again until 1906. The economic problems which confront New Zealand to-day are vast and important.'