The Daily News SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1935. PUBLIC WORKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1935, Page 6

The Daily News

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1935. PUBLIC WORKS.

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The suggestion made by an Otago deputation to the actingPrime Minister, Sir Alfred Ransom, that a further large irrigation scheme should be inaugurated in the Maniototo Country raises, at least two considerations. The first is the condition in which existing irrigation developments in Otago find themselves at present, and the second is that of the general expenditure upon public works throughout the Dominion. The results obtained from irrigated areas in Central Otago, while on the whole not entirely unsatisfactory, have not indicated overwhelming success. On more than one occasion relief has been sought by the settlers from water charges, and before an expenditure of £1,375,000 on further irrigation development could be approved the use to which the irrigated lands would be put deserves very careful consideration. The deputation’s estimate was that an additional 300 settlers could be provided for, should the proposed irrigation scheme be adopted. On the figures quoted it would entail, therefore, an expenditure of upwards of £5OO for water supply alone to establish each new settler. This is a heavy initial cost, considering that to it must be added the usual capital expenditure involved in closer settlement of land, and while the scheme may be attractive as affording a means of absorbing unemployed and increasing the productivity of lands that are at present unsuitable for closer settlement, the question'that still requires an answer is whether for such an expenditure better results could not be achieved in districts where irrigation is unnecessary, and many public utilities such as roads and railways already exist. Sir Alfred Ransom, who as Minister of Lands has a full knowledge of the vicissitudes that have attended existing irrigated areas in Central Otago was non-committal in his reply to the deputation, and it is evident that the scheme proposed requires very close examination. In regard to public works expenditure generally it was officially announced last week by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. J. W. Bitchener, that “the expenditure on public works is being maintained at well over £4,500,000 a year, this being the sum for the past financial year.” There were, stated the Minister, 11,500 men employed at present on public works throughout New Zealand. More than half of the men were employed on relief works, mostly at standard rates of pay, there being 6106 men engaged by the Public Works Department under arrangements with the Unemployment Board. There were, continued the statement, no spectacular works in hand, but a great deal of useful development work is being done. The sum indicated is likely to cause surprise to those who thought that since oversea borrowing for public works had ceased, and railway construction and major hydro-electric works concluded, the expenditure was a good deal less than the figure quoted by the Minister. The expenditure last year on undertakings which are charged against the general purposes account of the Public Works Fund amounted to about £2,500,000. Provision of electric supplies accounted for another £500,Q00, and apparently the remaining £1,500,000 in the Minister’s statement referred to the expenditure upon public highways. If this is so, last year’s funds for public works appear to have been derived from remnants of former loans, from the special

“motor” taxes, and from those for the relief of unemployment. More than half the men employed on works controlled by the Public Works Department were relief workers whose services were utilised under arrangements with the Unemployment Board, and who were thus enabled, in most cases, to earn standard rates of wages.. If this practice still obtains it is satisfactory insofar as it indicates that the cost of public works is being to a large extent defrayed out of the proceeds of taxation, rather than out of loan funds which would leave a burden to be carried for many years. As so much of the expenditure is for the relief of unemployment, proposals to meet it out of loan money would have had considerable support, especially from the type of politician who considers the Dominion can borrow its way out of all its economic problems. Incidentally the figures quoted by Mr. Bitchener give some indication of what would be the cost of the “State-guaranteed job at standard rates of wages,” so glibly suggested by some as the policy New Zealand should adopt. If it needs an expenditure of approximately £2,000,000 to provide 6106 workers with standard wages on admittedly desirable public works,. the cost of providing for eight times that number is fairly serious to contemplate.