DOMINION FINANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3995, 7 October 1930, Page 5

DOMINION FINANCE.

TREASURY AND THE RAILWAYS.

SIR OTTO NIEMEYER’S VIEWS. WAIPUKURAU, October 3. In the Municipal Theatre to-night Mr E. A. Ransom addressed a large aud representative audience of electors. Referring to Treasury aud railways matters. Mr Ransom quoted an extract from a confidential report received from Sir Otto Niemeyer from Sydney. It read: “ There is at present no comparison to be made between the financial position in New Zealand and Australia, but some external factors which faced Australia must also affect New Zealand. New Zealand, thanks largely to its sound financial methods of the past, enjoys a high reputation on the overseas lending markets, but in your own interests it seems to me that you should not be led away by that reputation into overseas borrowing, not really productive m the sense of producing within a reasonable period an increase in export values equivalent at least to the actual service of such borrowing. With the uncertainty of future agricultural prices it seems to me that New Zealand would be wise to be conservative in her overseas loan proposals in the near future. I wonder if it would be wise for New Zealand to follow the example, of most other countries, and without in any way removing the railway system from public ownership, to place the management in the hands of a special outside board appointed for a suitable period of years. Such a board would need a paid whole-time chairman and the other members could quite well be outside private persons analogous to the directors of an ordinary company, receiving only small fees for attending periodical board meetings. It would be essential that the board for the period of its appointment should have complete authority and responsibility and should also be responsible for the business management of the railways, including the fixing rates. It should also have to. decide upon the construction of new lines. Further, it was important to coordinate railway with road construction, and nowhere more so than in a country where the State has sunk capital in both forms of transport. I cannot help feeling that many difficulties might have been avoided by closer co-operation in the earlier stages of the various railway and road construction schemes. There is not room or need in New Zealand for a standing co-ordinating authority to judge in the general interest between the competing proposals of the road and railway authorities, each of which inevitably tends to consider its own angle only, without regard to the wider question of general transport facilities. It appears to me that while proposals for construction in either case should be initiated solely by a responsible authority they should be subject to a controlling veto by a person such as the Minister of Transport who is in a position to judge between the two interests.”

After dealing with other political issues Mr Ransom received a vote of thanks and confidence in the United Party, those present pledging support to Mr Jull’s candidature. .