A SELF-DELUDED PUBLIC

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 6 August 1931, Page 10

A SELF-DELUDED PUBLIC

RUSHING INTO DEBT uncontrolled borrowing BY STATE Some illuminating figures were given by Mr A. C. Bretherlon in the course of an address lo the Christchurch Economic Society on “The High Cost of Government,” reports Ihe “Times.’ The figures showed that the public debt per head of population in New Zealand hud increased from £SB 15. s 6d in 19C0 to £l7B Is Id in 1930; (lint the amount raised bv taxation had increased from £2.891,000 in 1900 to £19,471,000 in 1930; that (lie Consolidated Fund expenditure hail risen from £5,140,000 in 1900 fo £25,200,000 in 1930; and that tlie loan indebtedness of local bodies throughout tlie country had increased from £7,057,000 in 1930 to £62,003,000 in 1930. “The abnormal growth of our country in tho past forty years contributed to the rising cost of government,” Mr Brethcrton said. “By rising cost of government one means chiefly (he lack of restraint and the extravagance in public and especially private spending. Public borrowing and spending are threadbare subjects, but few public men have the courage to attack the still more serious problem of private borrowing and spending, which is responsible for the other.

GALLOPING INTO DEBT “The lack of control of the Budget on the part of Parliament, and especially the indifference of the public towards thrift, are the main reasons why the Government is borrowing and spending more than it did in the Great War, why the National Debt has trebled in seventeen years and why our local bodies have trebled tlie rating burden in ten years. The public have given the Government the impression that their only duty was to gallop faster and faster into debt. The Government has never once hesitated. Like the leech in the Book of Proverbs, the public on their part stopped at nothing in pressing their needs upon the Government. They wanted roads equal to those in the heart of a rich city like London. They wanted power plants equal to those of thickly populated cities in the United States. They wanted hospitals more elaborate than those of Vienna. They wanted schools to suit every kind ol crank or faddist notwithstanding that wo had a system of education much more efficient twenty years ago. They wanted railways into every piece of standing bush and that shameful waste on the so-called trunk line through Marlborough. They wanted railway stations rivalling those for cities where millions of people livo in older lands. I hey wanted agricultural colleges for every province. They wanted ' dairy pools, meat pools, wheat- pools and thousands of regulations with more regulations and yet more regulations. They wanted nurses and doctors and dentists without, apparently paying for them. I hey wanted inspectors for weeds, rabbits, seeds, meat, butter, health, hospitals, dairies, railways, prisons and taxes. They wanted State fire insurance State life- insurance, State exe;eutors, State stud farms, State coal, State forests and State picnic camps. I hey wanted a moratorium with its immoral and un-British attitude of treating every contract as a ‘scrap of paper. They Wanted pensions for old people, blind people, soldiers, widows, babies and how-event for able-bodied men who, by the very action of all this Socialism, are forced out of their jobs I bus have the public been trained to look to the Government for everything-, by a process of self-delusion hoping that they can receive those benefits Without paying for them or, at any rate, that ‘the other fellow’ will be •axed to pay the cost. There has never been such a demoralised public opinion

INDUSTRIES HAMPERED “VVe find practically no new industries, the old-established industries are hampered, taxed, regulated and restricted at every turn. . The Governor-Gene rat has urged our existing industries to reduce overhead costs and thus reduce the price of the output. Our farming industry is in a critical position. If it »vere not for the certainty of a recovery in our British overseas market, the farmers would be ruined. We find thousands have walked off the land in the past ten years, when wo should have Lhe schools turning out ten thousand Hew farm workers each year. We greatly need a ‘back lo the land’ policy With plenty of capital to support it. Good sound management could easily secure this capital by simple means. As die Governor-General jiointed out, this would develop our land and increase our consuming as well as producing population.

‘lhe eiiternrjse and enthusiasm of our young people has been sapped bv bins spoon-feeding at the hands of government. We should have energetic young men opening up new markets for us in China,, Japan, Java, Argenfiuu, Brazil and Chile, We should have pioneering young men organising shipping lines, new factories and settling in tens' of thousands on our .wonderfully fertile land, instead of which they nil seem to aspire to a shabby genteel job in a Government office. We arc in danger of losing our reputation for moneering, for enterprise, and for selfreliance, though hard times may do something to repair the damage result'ug from namby-pamby State socialism with its insidious pensions, grants and subsidies.

U)e high cost of State and municipal government is a subject which can ho studied from dozens of angles, but whatever view you take you will find flint State socialism has absorbed most of the working capital—the life blood—of private enterprise; and, as onlv private enterprise can pay the taxation which ever-incrcasingJy is forced upon the community, those who are not State employees or local body employees ar*' wondering when the gallop will stop. Such a headlong rush into debt always stops. Even now local bodies are talking of default. / “Unless a change of mental outlook comes nothing is more certain than that our savings will go by bank draft to Australia or London, as they are doing at this very moment, in spite of Australia s own difficulties. I have. good grounds for saying this and even now there is a flight of capital from New Zealand.”