DEBT INCREASES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20063, 21 March 1935, Page 3

DEBT INCREASES

COUNTIES’ HIGH FIGURES Impressive figures showing the increases in net loan indebtedness of various public services in New Zealand were presented tby Mr D. Holderness, engineer to the Auckland Harbour Board, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers. Between 1900 and 1932 said Mr Holderness, the population of the Dominion had increased from 808,132 to 1,533,700. In the same period the net indebtedness of the general government had increased from £46,930,000 to £279,-

507,000, an advance of 595 per cent. That of counties had increased from £6900 to £4,443,000, a. growth of no less than 64,401 per cent. Boroughs’ indebtedness had shown an increase of 1003 per cent, rising from £2,939,000 to £29,505,000, while harbour boards’ indebtedness had increased from £3,845,000 to £10,422,000. increase of 271 per cent. The net indebtedness of other local bodies had increased from £8,149,000 to £72,402,000, representing 888 per cent. With so many harbour boards operating in New Zealand and under prevailing methods of administration and control, Mr Holderness suggested that it might reasonably be expected that there had been excessive expenditure in the provision of harbour facilities.

There had been cases where works had been inaugurated obviously beyond tho requirements of the district served. However, as the figures indicated, expenditure on the harbour works in general in New Zealand, in comparison with other public services, had not been as much out of proportion to the growth of population and trade as might have been anticipated. It was not suggested, said Mr Holderness, that a heavy increase in loan indebtedness was necessarily an indication of uneconomic expenditure. i n the case of harbour boards a by no means inconsiderable proportion of the increased capital expenditure was represented by direct revenue-producing assets in the form of reclaimed land and buildings.