ACCEPTING THE INEVITABLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21537, 8 January 1932, Page 6

ACCEPTING THE INEVITABLE.

The decision of the Government to defer the construction of a post office in Dunedin will necessarily cause disappointment and regret in the city. If it be the case that, as the Prime Minister implies, the cost of the building would have to be met out of borrowed money—if, that is to say, the funds in the Post Office account are not available for the purpose —even those who are most disappointed—and even dismayed—at the abandonment of the work will recognise the need of bowing to the inevitable. It would be foolish, now that the Home money market is closed to New Zealand and that a drastic curtailment of Public Works expenditure is forced on the Government, to protest against undertaking the erection of a costly building. Dunedin has been without an adequate post office building for so long that a .few years more or less will not involve an inconvenience that will greatly matter. A possible alternative to the postponement of the erection of the building would be the raising of a loan in Dunedin in order that the necessary funds might be secured, and this would be a step so unprecedented that it is highly probable that the Government would not entertain the idea of it. The actual fact is that the country has for many years been spending too much borrowed money on buildings. The most recent example of a lavish outlay was the erection in Auckland at an enormous cost of a railway station much more ambitious than is required. It has to be realised that in existing circumstances an extravagant and even a heavy expenditure on public buildings cannot be justified, but it is unfortunate for Dunedin that it should be chosen as the Government’s exemplar in its enunciation of a policy of economy in the utilisation of public funds.. It is unfortunate, also, that the Government should have gone so far as to call for tenders for the construction of the building before deciding that the work cannot be undertaken in the meantime, for contractors must have been put to great trouble and expense in preparing tenders that will be of no immediate avail. If the decision announced by Mr Forbes had been reached by the Government many months ago, when the need for the curtailment of borrowing might have been foreseen, it would have caused much less disappointment than it now does. The erection of

the building would have provided employment for large numbers of men during the approaching winter, and it would have given a distinct fillip to several industries.. It must be assumed, however, that the conclusion at which the Government has arrived in respect to the Dunedin Post Office implies that for at least a year there will be a suspension throughout the Dominion of public works of magnitude of this nature. If that be so, we have no peculiar cause for complaint in Dunedin, but we may reasonably claim that the construction of the post office shall be one of the first works to be put in hand when the financial situation becomes easier' and the Government is enabled to secure funds on favourable terms.