The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1910. HEAVY BORROWING.

Southland Times, Issue 14580, 22 November 1910, Page 4

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1910. HEAVY BORROWING.

The enormous borrowing involved in the Government programme of Public Works, defence, and schemes for the assistance of the settler and the worker has rather shaken some of those who are rarely willing to admit that there is room for criticism in the Government’s policy. The Lyttelton Times, for Instance, admits that it is rather staggered by the number of inillions that have to be borrowed to enable the Minister of Public Works to fulfil the engagements to which he commits himself in his latest Public Works Statement. It is no doubt very pleasant to be able to announce that the expenditure of last year has rarely been exceeded in the history of the colony, and there is a certain exhilaration in going one better and breaking all records, both in spending and in borrowing, after the fashion of the Hon. R. McKenzie in this year’s Statement. It is a proof of the Dominion’s enterprise and ambition that it should borrow a million for advances to settlers, a million for advances to Workers, a million for a first-class battleship to present to Britain, a million for the development of water power, and two or three million for miscellaneous public works, and a proof of its healthy digestion that it should still sleep easy at night. Not very many years ago borrowingon the scale to which the Dominion has now become accustomed would

have been regarded as impossible, even by the most financiers. Had anyone suggested 'to John Ballance that he should borrow in five years what Parliament now agrees cheerfully to borrow in one, the Premier, whose ambition it was to lay the ship of State on the course of self-reliance in finance, would probably have exploded with astonishment and rage. Gradually the borrowing habit has grown upon us, and in ail probability the £5,000,000 loan and £3,800,000 programme of public works will be forgotten a week after the end of the session. They will trouble nobody until it again becomes necessary to give the taxation screw another turn in order to obtain more revenue, and then perhaps there will be a protest from those who begin to feel the chafing of the burden. It is this time of reckoning that is foreseen by the Lyttelton Times, and our contemporary is more than a little uneasy about the outlook. It says : “ But the fact that with the exception of the £BOO,OOO it is proposed to transfer from the Consolidated Fund the whole of the Public Works Fund has been obtained from loan mofaey is just a little disconcerting.” True, the Lyttelton Times maintains that “ New Zealand is well able to bear the burdens it is taking upon itself,” and that ‘‘if its debt were doubled its creditors would have no cause for alarm.” But the general tone of its article betrays the fact that it is exercised by the doubt whether all the money so lavishly borrowed is being well expended. “If we are to go on borrowing at the rate of three million a year for Public Works,” it says, “we should be taking a little more interest in the expenditure of the money.” This is a plain truth plainly stated, but it has also to be recognised as a plain fact that neither the people nor the members of Parliament are very keenly interested in the expenditure of the borrowed millions. The people do not realise how rapidly their debt is mounting up. They do not realise what it means to borrow £ 1,250,000 for a battleship that may be a heap of old iron in less than ten years which is essentially an unsound transaction, even though a sinking fund is provided for. If New Zealand wishes to make presents of battleships it should pay for them, and if it cannot pay for them it should not give them away. As for the members of the House, they are concerned chiefly to get their share of the spoil, and so long as they are provided for they are content to vote the money in a few careless hours *on the simple theory that the future can look after itself. It is quite probable that some members will congratulate the Government this year on being able to assist the public works fund by so large a sum as £BOO,OOO from the general revenue, forgetting that last year additional taxation was imposed to meet extra expenditure upon defence which has not yet come into account, and that in the circumstances there should have been a million and a quarter at least to transfer to the Public Works fund. The interest taken in the expenditure of the money is quite incommensurate with the scale of these large borrowing transactions and with the importance of the schemes in hand, but it seems as if nothing less than a cataclysm will arouse the public to a sense of their responsibility or members to a sense of their duty.