LOANS, RAILWAYS. AND ELECTRICITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21242, 24 January 1931, Page 12

LOANS, RAILWAYS. AND ELECTRICITY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l have read the letters by “ Reader ” in your issue concerning the Reform Party’s borrowing during the last 10 years they were in office, and your footnote. It is hard for the ordinary reader to follow quotations from the Official Year Book. I have no figures to go by, but if I remember aright, the Reform Government borrowed about £6.600,000 a year during the last 10 years it was in office, this making a total of about £06,000,000. Now let us go back to the time when the Liberals went oht of power. The National Debt at that time was about £93,000,000. The Reform Government borrowed about £87,000.000 while in power. The war debt is £66,000,000. The United Government has borrowed a total of about £14,000,000 to date. This makes a grand total of about £260,000,000. I would ask you. Sir, whether the Reform Party borrowed £66,000,000 to pay the war debt, or did it borrow only £47,000,000, and take Sir Joseph Ward’s £19,000,000 which he left behind him when he resigned from the Coalition Cabinet? If not so, what did the Reform Government do with the £19.000,000? Mr Stringer says the railway debt today is about the same as the National Debt was 20 years ago. I would remind Mr Stringer that he is only about

£25,000,000 out in his calculations, as the railway debt is about £08,000,000 and the National Debt 20 years ago was about £93.000,000. Too much has been, said about the £70,000.000 proposal which helped to put the nails in the Reform Party’s coffin at last election, and there will be six-inch spikes put in its coffin next election. Had the Reform papers said nothing, the electors would have taken no notice of the seventy millions, as the money was to be borrowed over a period of eight or 10 years, and this only equalled the amount the Reform Party had been borrowing. Sixty millions was to be spent over a period of eight or 10 years for advances to settlers, workers’ homes, electric schemes, and other public works jobs, and 10 millions to complete the main railways over the same period. As the Government has borrowed about £14,000,000 in the last two years, it is carrying out its main platform pledge. As it has already spent its annual limit, it has bad to stop some of the railways at present. No one had the foresight to see. the depression 27 months ago, and again there was the great earthquake in June, 1929, and the misfortune at the Arapuni electric scheme which is costing another halfmillion and may be more. Great credit is due to the United Government for carrying on in the way it is doing in the circumstances. Still, the Reform and Labour parties’ supporters try to make out that the Government has failed to carry out its election pledges. Mr Stringer and other writers are very much against the railway construction policy. I would ask them if it ever occurred to them that too much money has been spent on electric schemes, as none of them have proved the success they were supposed to be. The farmers are heavily rated for the electric schemes and nothing is said about this. Twenty years ago it cost the farmer about 30s to 40s a year for kerosene. He still burns the same amount of coal, or very little less, as New Zealand is a cold country and one always requires the same amount of firing except for about two months in the year. Now, there is the Waitaki electric scheme, which will cost about £2,000,000, and the farmer will be taxed again, and I fail to see where the extra power to come from Waitaki is going to be used up. Consequently the townspeople, as well as the farmers, will have to pay more rates. The average farmer to-day is paying £25 a year for electricity and rates after an outlay for electric appliances of from £SO to £IOO. I am sure there are many farmers who would find that £SO or £IOO more useful to-day who would be better off with the kerosene lamps, at about 12 a year, instead of £25 a year for electricity. In my opinion we are 20 years ahead of our time with the electricity scheme. If each town had. its own small scheme for trams and lighting only, there would be less unemployed to-day, as nothing is manufactured and sold cheaper than it would be if we had no electricity. 1 would also ask Mr Stringer Whether it is right that a farmer who is not in a position to spend £SO or £IOO on electric appliances and is not a consumer should be rated for electricity. Many farmers are paying £lO and more m rates alone. As the population of the Dominion is so sparse in the country, I would also ask mm if it would not be better to complete the main trunk lines and open up the country and make closer settlement, to the produce, coal, timber out of the extensive scope of country in the Marlborough, Nelson, and Westland Provinces before spending so much money on electric schemes as at present. It seems to me the cart has been put before the horse, and some one has blundered. I would ask Mr Stringer to look on the bright side and not take the £66,000,000 war debt into consideration at all as all countries have a war debt all due to a madman (the ex-Kaiser) and see if the position of New Zealand is not sound as regards the national debt at £194,000,000. If we had no railways to get our produce and stock to the towns and harbours, would New Zealand, be the prosperous country she is, and why not make her more prosperous by completing the mam trunk railways? I would remind Mr Stringer that the Government valuation of Auckland city alone is over £50,000,000. So why worry about our national debt. — I am, etc.. Queer Fellow. January 21. [The war debt amounted to £82,245,000. It has been reduced by about £12,500.000, and now stands at £09,783,526—Ed. O.D.T.]