Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1937 OVER EIGHTEEN MILLIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 17 November 1937, Page 6

Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1937 OVER EIGHTEEN MILLIONS

IN the main, there is nothing new in the Public'Works Statement if one bears in mind the Budget announcement —after half the financial year had gone —that it was proposed to spend a sum exceeding seventeen million pounds—an amount that has since grown by nearly one and a quarter millions. Moreover the Minister of Public Works himself in numerous statements, regarding proposed and current activities, had removed the possibility of any element of surprise. The Government, quite clearly, is determined to pursue its orgy of spending. Public works expenditure last year was estimated to he £10,450,000, of which, the Minister of Finance said, £5,940,444 would be borrowed. This year we are told that of the eighteen millions to be spent, £10,400,000 is loan money. Where is the money coming from? The expenditure in progress on public works—some of them of very doubtful ultimate value—is not only extravagantly huge, but disquieting. When Mr Semple presented his first statement to Parliament he mentioned that loan expenditure on public works increased from £1,350,400 in 1919 to £8,388,500 in 1931, and was sharply reduced to £4,815,540 in 1932, and still further to £1,727,000 in 1933. He described this reduction of £6,661,450 (approximately) as disastrous, "as when public works should have been expanding, an opposite policy was followed." That statement appeared to indicate that Mr Semple favoured the commonsensc policy advocated by. most economists that a period of depression is the time for expansion of public expenditure. Failure to recognise the value of that policy was one of the weaknesses of the late Government which contributed to its defeat. Now we are witnessing the Government reversing the policy which Mr Semple seemed to advocate—saving in a time of prosperity, so as to have the means to spend in the time of adversity. It applies to the individual as well as the State, although the Prime Minister has enunciated doctrines discouraging thrift. Just as thrift for the individual has been discouraged by Ministers, it is being ignored by the GovernHigh price levels for our exports have placed the Government in a position the country has never been in before. Income from overseas markets since the depression has increased by approximately thirty million pounds. That is the reason for th c improved conditions which appear to exist to-day improvement despite restrictive legislation, excessive taxation, Government interference in business and the attempt to destroy initiative and individuality. What is ©to happen if outside factors which arc helping us, disappear—even partly? It is sheer futility of "the sky is the limit" type to say, as a Minister has said, that no mailer what happens elsewhere in the world, there will never he another slump in New Zealand, so long as a Labour Government is in power. 1 o revert to details of the Public Works Statement and the expenditure it reveals as in progress, we should like to commend the Minister’s ideal of completing metalled roads to all primary producers throughout New Zealand. On this worthy objective nearly one million is . being spent. The farmer in the backblocks or localities diflicult of approach is deserving of every consideration in the matter of road access, and I more so than ever when existing conditions make it so difficult for him to procure labour, most of which must he done by himself and his family. But a total of over eighteen millions on public works in one year is dangerously reckless.