LIVING ABOVE OUR MEANS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19405, 13 August 1926, Page 8

LIVING ABOVE OUR MEANS.

Sir, —How long is the Government and the public going to continue living in the fool's paradise that exists at present? Last year we started with some £9,000,000 of a nest egg, this year we start with the boot on the other foot to the tone of about £1,500,000; Under similar conditions on former occasions there has been a great advance in one or other of our primary products, which .has saved the position, but we need not look for this to happen every tijne, and at the presont moment the outlook is very much the other way. Undoubtedly there is a day of -reckoning close at hand. It is apparent that unless ouf methods change, and change quickly, there is a shock coming—principally to the town dweller. The farmer has now for some years been having a desperate struggle to hold his head above water. Generally, the working farmer, has had to be content to work far harder and longer hours than his brother townsman, and for considerably less reward for his labour. Thus he has got used to hard conditions of life and consequently will not suffer to the same extent in the general rectification that is assuredly ahead of iia all. If the value or quantity of our tprimary product's does not increase, then we must reduco our expenditure, both publicly and privately, until we are living within our income. It appeal's to thp writer that a great deal of the trouble lies at the door of our secondary industries, which more so than our primary, demand varying degrees of protection. If we confined ourselves to supplying other portions of ouf Empire with foodstuffs of various sorts and adopted a policy of free trade within the Empire, then the life-work of our population would be to settle the land and produce in great and greater quantities by intensive cultivation of small areas. It is quite useless for us to ape the largo manufacturing centres of the Old World, our co%ts being at least 100 per cent, above, and ,of necessity our output in all branches is too'small*to allow of up-to-date methods of mass production, and thus we are at great disadvantage in these, matters. In matters agricultural and pastofal it is the reverse; there is no country in the world more favoured by nature for cheap production and in fostering this to its fullest limits appears our only hope of holding our own in this age of intense competition. E.C.H.