MOVEMENTS OF THE ECONOMIC BAROMETER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20763, 25 June 1937, Page 8

MOVEMENTS OF THE ECONOMIC BAROMETER.

Although several of the most wideawake observers of the movements of the world’s economic barometer, are warning the peoples of all countries to look facts in the face, the New Zealand Ministers in London are manifestly too busy to hear the warning bells. The world is being informed that New Zealand has not only solved the problem of unemployment, but has by the mere enactment of legislation produced a magical return of prosperity, with heaps of millions available to meet bigger and bigger demands. But New Zealand’s touring JJjnisters have cleverly refused to confess that a Government composed of the leaders of the Party which promised in 1935 to find employment for everyone willing to work, collected during the last financial year, £4,667,255 by way of unemployment levy and wages tax to provide funds for the relief of unemployment. In eighteen months moreover, the Government expended £2 364 309 to keep men in a state of idleness. The phase of national affairs that must inevitably be faced, and which calls for the presence in New Zealand of all the Cabinet Ministers, is the need for internal development through the encouragement of industrial and commercial enterprise. All the eggs must not get into one basket, which is the way to assured progress? The country is enjoying a spell of prosperity that manifestly has its roots—despite Ministerial utterances to the contrary—in sources beyond the control of the Government and the people of New Zealand. Hence the rather punishing experiences this country passed through in days of unfavourable markets and low prices, would" not be forgotten by a Government that is alive to the great responsibilities of its high office.