TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY. 22nd JANUARY, 1940. ELECTRICITY AND KAWHIA.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4234, 22 January 1940, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY. 22nd JANUARY, 1940. ELECTRICITY AND KAWHIA.

VERY properly Te Awamutu Electric, Power Board did not meekly submit to the recommendation of the Local Bodies’ ‘ Loans Board that the Kawhia ioau proposals should stand aside indefinitely. Admitting the pre-eminent claims for military and defence works, it is nevertheless difficult to understand this recommendation and link it with the public directions in other matters. The Power Board has rightly drawn a comparison between the Loans Board’s attitude and the reecnt utterances of the Minister of Public Works

regarding internal development in

this country. More pointed still is the rate of expenditure on Government buildings at the present time. It is almost impossible to balance the erection of the largest block of offices in Wellington, with a floor space of several acres, to house Government servants, with a refusal to permit the financing of back-blocks electrie supply services. Still more grotesque is the building of what is popularly called “ Uncle Scrim’s

broadcasting office in Auckland.” It is one thing to attribute economy measures to the war, but it is another thing to prove that war effort is really served. The Government problem seems to be the justification of office building in the cities when rural development is halted. Anyone who visits official Wellington just now must marvel at the rate of Government expenditure; towering buildings are being erected, and it gives the appearance of scant limit on public finance; and it seems to suggest that the Local Bodies’ Loans Board is unduly cautious or, rather, has not the confidence of the Government in the allocation or distribution of public credit facilities. In any case there is a disproportionate use- of credit. The lavish buildings in Wellingtoneven the broadcasting house in Auck-land—-will not directly contribute to the creation of additional wealth. Yet the Kawhia district is a vast storehouse of untapped wealth. As a matter of fact, no locality in this country to-day offers greater scope for foiward development. There are thousands of acres which can be made available for settlement and greater production if a forward policy is pursued, and the Minister of Pub- • lie Works and the Minister of Lands could find almost limitless scope for collaboration and joint effort to expand New Zealand’s wealth by development in the Kawhia district. Not only electric supply services, but access, should be provided as quickly as possible, and a large-scale settlement plan could be promoted. To stand such works aside for a more favourable opportunity, especially while finance is available for other less remunerative purposes, is shortsighted folly. Kawhia development would increase production and thereby enrich New Zealand. The building of offices which are not productive must tend to impoverish or drain the resources. No matter how regarded, it seems an unbalanced economy which directs available resources into non-productive channels and. stays their use in productive works until conditions are more favourable. Another factor touched upon by the Power Board was the relief the electric reticulation would provide in the oil fuel situation. But above all is the aid to production and the utilisation of latent resources which should not be permitted to remain idle. The Power Board rendered a signal service when it offered to incorporate in its area a sparselysettled district and to pool its revenues in tiding over the. period of Kawhia development. Its forward policy was deserving of better recognition. A power supply’ authority which offered to co-operate with the Government in the tasks of development might reasonably have expected to receive mori helpful treatment. At very least the Board’s request to be permitted to proceed with the loan authority poll—a formality that will take at least three or four months to complete—might have been conceded. The Board’s claims are just and cannot be lightly passed over—that is, of course, if development is really intended, and if we are not to ascribe to the war a policy of abandonment and despair.