GOVERNMENT SPENDING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23340, 8 May 1939, Page 14

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Sir, —The numerous huge State buildings recently erected or now in course of erection in Wellington afford all taxpayers food for very serious consideration. Massive State buildings seem-to be an obsession of the present Government and these are being erects! on such a lavish scale /as one would oxpect to find in the £reat cities of Europe and America J The new State fire ofnees in Wellington present an example of the Government's squanderimaniii. This building-is now being considerably extended and when completed will outrival in azp any State fire building in any city of Australia. Perhaps it would be opportune to compare this building with the State fire offices in Auckland now occupying premises formerly used as a dining room in High; Street. *; The total cost of the new State buildings in Wellington will probably be in the vicinity of £2.000.000 and the necessity for this expenditure does not at present exist. Had the cost of these monuments of Government foolishness been devoted to relief of taxation, one could venture the belief that the need for the social security tax would never have arisen. The many huge P"' c works and. other Government undertakings in and near Wellington are absolutely out of proportion to necessity and lead one to conclude that the wag? earners of the rust of New Zealand are being mercilessly bled in order to satis y the Government's bogey of. t°'olis spending. Now The*.