The Putaruru Press PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY Phone 28 P.O. BOX 44 OFFICE OXFORD PLACE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1941 OTHER PAPERS’ OPINIONS

Putaruru Press, Volume XVI, Issue 957, 20 November 1941, Page 4

The Putaruru Press PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY Phone 28 P.O. BOX 44 OFFICE OXFORD PLACE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1941 OTHER PAPERS’ OPINIONS

■WAR-TIME standards of living In an Armistice Day address, reported from Wellington, Mr. Leslie Lefeaiux, formerly Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, asked a question which searches the character and extent of the Dominion’s war effort- “Is- a reasonable proportion of our greatly increased national income, swollen through the war, .being devoted to the war effort, or are we avoiding present sacrifices?” In that form, or slightly restated, it is a question that serves to test public finance and private expenditure, the amis of the National ' Savings Scheme and its progress, complaints against a rising cost of living and demands > for wage increases to offset it, and every complacent estimate of New Zealand’s contribution to the war- The people are yet far from realising what the material demands of war are. They are “tempted,” as Mr. Lefeaux said, “to go on living as before” and to think that the Government should make it easy to do so. For this dangerous misunderstanding the Government itself is largely to blame- Apart from a few plain statements by the Minister for Finance, in the early months of the war, hardly anything has been said or done to drive home the essential facts, create a conviction, and use it. The war is a giant consumer- It consumes labour, plant, raw materials, and finished products. It consumes resources which otherwise serve civil consumers, maintaining or raising their standard of living. What it consumes, they lose; wh'at they lose is their contribution, or sacrifice, to the war effort. They cannot make it any other way. They cannot make any real contribution or sacrifice and at the same time rebain their former, standard of living: the two things aTe contradictory. And the only measure of material sacrifice is the measure of standards of living, in which money figures are meaningless and only distributable goods and services count- When this test is applied, it ■will be obvious that sacrifice in New Zealand has so far been slight The war effort can be increased unquestionably; but it can only be increased by further diversion of labour, plant, materials and products from civil to war purposes—that is, _by accepting a lower standard of living and consuming less. The National Savings Scheme, for example, can have only the most trivial utility, if any at all, until it begins to draw upon savings that do, in fact, represent such a surrender of consumption. The people of New Zealand are not to be blamed for an unrealistic attitude. They have still to be told that they can intensify their war effort or they can cling to peace-time standards of living, but cannot do both. They have still to be told that the material savings and sacrifices required to intensify the *rar effort must be drawn, of course In equitable proportion, from low incomes as well as middle and high, . since the low incomes account for by far the greatest part of ordinary consumption. And they have still to be told that, if consumption is not -quitably reduced by taxes and sav’ngs, which can be controlled, it must be reduced, inequitably, by the pressure of inflation, which cannot be controlled. Nobody will doubt the Dominion’s choice and its support of all measures necessary to make the choice effective. But the choice must be clearly put before it can be made. The Government has so far failed to put it clearly Press.