HELPING THE GOVERNMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20655, 29 August 1930, Page 10

HELPING THE GOVERNMENT.

The suggestion that Sir Otto Niemeyer should be invited to visit New Zealand officially has obviously much to commend it. Without making invidious comparisons between Australia and New Zealand, it may safely be said that the circumstances which compelled the Australian Governments to seek the advice of an independent expert of acknowledged authority arc reproduced in New Zealand in less aggravated form, and that it would be wise now to adopt safeguards against the risk of dangerous consequences rather than to wait until the situation becomes desperately embarrassing. It would be idle to pretend that the public finances are not in a most unsatisfactory position. A prospective deficiency in the Budget of £3,000,000 is not a familiar episode in New Zealand's history; indeed, there is no precedent <if similar magnitude for the financial problem to be solved this year. Theoretically, the gulf between revenue and expenditure will be filled by the application of the Government's proposals, but it has yet to be proved whether the effort to extract over £20,000,000 of taxation will succeed, while the estimated contribution as a result of railway savings is so speculative that it can scarcely be taken into account. In the field of loan expenditure, the Government is committed 1o a programme of hopelessly unproductive works for which no financial proyision has been made beyond fhe present year at most. These are merely illustrative of the matters upon which independent advice might be sought by the Government without sacrificing its dignity. But the suggestion that it should take the opportunity of consulting Sir Otto Niemever cannot be profitably advanced unless the Government is prepared at once to say that it would be guided by his advice. Otherwise, to ask him for recommendations and then to ignore them would merely waste his time and public money.