THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, November 17, 1937. THE PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAMME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23351, 17 November 1937, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, November 17, 1937. THE PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAMME

The programme of expenditure on public works, outlined by the Minister in the annual statement, which was presented to Parliament yesterday, is fortunately less terrifying to the taxpayers than on paper it would seem to be. Yet it is terrifying enough. It was intimated in the Budget that the works and development programme, including the maintenance of highways and certain other items of a revenue nature, would require provision for an expenditure of £ 17,367,000 in the course of the financial year. The estimate which the Minister of Public Works now gives of the amount required to finance his programme does not seem to equal this sum. The actual figure which he requires does not appear. Though it may not be so great as the amount mentioned in the Budget, it would still be sufficiently great to cause considerable uneasiness to the taxpayer were it not that he knows that funds to the extent of Mr Semple's requirements could not possibly be spent in a year of which more than one-half has already expired. Even if expenditure on the imposing scale that is so attractive to the Minister were physically practicable in the course of a twelve-month, there are factors that tend to hold Mr Semple's hand. Thus, while the sum of £1,689,000 is included in the estimates for public buildings, the Minister states that the scarcity of skilled labour and of structural steel has caused a considerable delay in the building programme, and the whole question of the order of precedence for building has to be determined before the department is in a position to call for tenders to the amount of £250,000. It will be some consolation to the taxpayer to know that a programme of the magnitude of that contemplated by Mr Semple cannot possibly be put into execution in a year. But the same taxpayer will be seriously disturbed to learn that it is planned that works estimated to cost £10,440,957, however long it may take to complete them, are to be a charge upon loan money. It is not Mr Semple's task, but it is that of the Minister of Finance to raise the funds that will be required, and if Mr Nash should become somewhat exercised in mind by the demands which his colleague is making upon him the community need hardly be surprised. Mr Semple himself has no illusions about the source from which the Government can secure the finance it requires. He has ridiculed the notion that money can be picked off mulberry bushes. Presumably it will be from such Government departments as the Public Trust Office, the State Insurance Offices and the Post Office that the funds will be borrowed. The money that is being expended on the State housing scheme is, the public has been told by the Undersecretary, under whose direction this scheme is being carried out, " new money, created by the Reserve Bank," and last week's return sug-

gests that up to the present " new money" for this purpose has been "created " to the extent of £700,000. The taxpayer has not yet been told the terms on which this " new money" has been made available. It cannot, however, be a misuse of terms to describe it as borrowed money. And now we are faced with the position that a Government, which has taxed and is taxing the people of the Dominion to an unprecedented extent, and which professes a dislike of borrowing, is heavily increasing the public indebtedness. Of the net payments on public works last year £6,778,901 may, Mr Semple says, be regarded as expended from loan moneys. It is now proposed to expend £ 10,440,957 of loan moneys on other public works. These sums, with the addition of the money " created " for expenditure on housing, represent a total commitment of nearly 18 millions! The expression " squandermania," which we have previously applied to the Government's policy, is assuredly not inappropriate.