TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 19th MAY, 1944 THIS SEEMING PROSPERITY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5945, 19 May 1944, Page 2

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 19th MAY, 1944 THIS SEEMING PROSPERITY

POLITICAL BIGOTRY can generally be regarded with tolerance and patience, but occasions do arise when over-enthusiasm in a mistaken cause can create false impressions and lead to serious consequences. Such an occasion occurred recently when one of these bigots attributed signs of prosperity in New Zealand to-day to a form of government. Actually, his claim vyas that this country had never known greater prosperity than it does to-day, and he supported his claim by the evidences of high spending power, absence of unemployment, and surplus of savings as revealed by banking statistics. Such he claimed to be the signs of prosperity which could be regarded as the good omens of the future It matters not that such a claim is put forward as the proof of a political doctrine; what is of serious concern is that there can be so easily encouraged a wrongful understanding and a dangerous reliance on a badly-based future. It is, of course, true that if under a normal economy any or all of the qualities of spending power and savings, full employment, and man-power demand existed our affairs would occasion widespread satisfaction. But it must surely be apparent that we have a very abnormal economy just now; indeed, the responsible leaders of the Government are at considerable pains to impress this fact upon the people. So that, instead of aiding the Government just now, the foolish partisan is embarrassing his leaders by false praise. Many utterances of the responsible members of the Government have cautioned the people against the follies of the moment, and the partisan could well have heeded the warnings. When, for instance, the Minister of Finance presented the financial statement to Parliament on 27th May last year, he was particularly emphatic. Mr Nash very properly commented upon the shortage of consumer goods, which when set against a war expenses account expenditure of £144,000,000 for the year, would very directly contribute to the high spending power and surplus of savings. Another abnormal factor in the survey of national figures was what Mr Nash described as the “ large civil expenditure of £14,900,000 for subsidies, reserve stocks, food contracts, etc.” Still more impressive was the analysis of war expenditure. “ This huge outlay of £239,000,000,’’ said Mr Nash, was financed by taxation £88,100,000, loans in New Zealand and overseas £123,500,000, reciprocal aid, lend-lease ‘ £26,800,000, and miscellaneous £600,000. For the current year then opening Mr Nash anticipated a war expenditure of £148,000,000,, against which he assessed taxation revenue of £46,000,000 and a huge borrowing programme. In any case no responsible man of the Government shares with the foolish partisans in the electorate any misgiving about a seeming prosperity in the ruling economic or financial conditions today, and it is a dis-service —indeed, a grave danger—to create false impressions. The fact is that ours is an abnormal economy arising out of war, of emergency, of created credits, and of disorganised trade mechanisms. Nobody, not even the greatest of partisan bigots, could wish for an economy created by the demand of war— a n economy which deliberately controls the supply of consumer goods in order that precedence may be given to the war essential; that diverts the nation’s man-power and resources to the implements of destruction for the waging of a total war; which cumulatively increases spending power but limits purchasing power, and ends in a surplus of saving; and which, withal and in addition, leaves such a huge indebtedness as the result of an enforced borrowing. All that is surely not prosperity; actually it is a tremendous responsibility which must be regarded only as a challenge to our industry and our determination in the future.