THE OAMARU MAIL TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1920. A GOVERNMENT OF PRETENCE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14042, 27 April 1920, Page 3

THE OAMARU MAIL TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1920. A GOVERNMENT OF PRETENCE.

The Prime Minister and bis colleagues have talked glibly and grandiloquently of pushiiig on with vigor the hydroelectricity schemes of the Dominion, and of the great results that are going to be achieved through the medium or those enterprises—how they will give such a stimulus to industry and production that a new era of astonishing prosperity will be ushered in. They have told us, and we believe it, that the provision of hydro-electricity on a grand scale, making available a cheap and highly efficient motive power, will transform the wliole industrial life of New Zealand, and place this remote country in a position to compete, in the markets of the world. In short, this power policy of the Government, we nave been told, will work wonders for the Dominion. And sojt may do, and we believe will do. With all this inspiring talk and promise it would have been thought that the Government would have adopted every available means of pushing forward its progressive policy. But what do we find? The talk has been frothy and the promise illusive. The progressive policy has been adopted, but it is being carried out in a very slow and halfhearted fashion, as though _ it were either too good a tiling to be hastened to a conclusion or that the Government had been seized with timidity and had lost the power and spirit of action. Whatever may be the cause, the fact remains that the work of construction is being carried on in a most unsatisfactory manner. Of that there is no room for any doubt. Complaints about the paltry progress that has been made with North Island schemes have been rife for some time, and these culminated so far as the Mongahao works are concerned in a conference of the local bodies to consider the position. That conference set up an executive to look into the wretched business, and the results are given in a telegram which appears in this issue. The report is a complete and damning exposure of the incptness of the Government or of the Public Works Department. We are told that the executive express "dissatisfaction with- the way the work is handled/' that the wages paid to the men are too low. that "the accommodation provided for the men is miserable," and that "it is useless expect to' keep up sufficient. labor unless the conditions of life for the men are satisfactory," and the executive emphatically pronounce them not to. be so. It would appear from these very plain statements - that tho enthusiasm of the. Government with reference to the hydro-electricity schemes has warned. Are we to conclude that, having successfully survived the general election and secured a three-years' tenure of office, Mr Massey ana his colleagues have lost the spur to action? If so, we are offered an exceedingly tame and disappointing climax to all the grandiloquent utterance- and glowing promise so freely indulged in. when, an appeal to th» country was impending.

Though the cause of the trouble rests in the North Island, it closely concerns us in Otago, for until the North Island schemes reach a. forward state there is no prospect of the Government undertaking the Otagb scheme..".; That means that we may have to %ait twenty years for enjoyment'of the promised means of expanding our-industries, the creation of hew enterprises, and all the manifold blessings that must flow from ehoap 'power made available throughout the land.