DOMINION ECONOMICS

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19763, 19 December 1935, Page 13

DOMINION ECONOMICS

FINANCE MINISTER’S PLEA. EXPERT CO-OPERATION URGED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The Minister of Finance, the Hon. Walter Nash, in an address to the Institute of Secretaries, said the Government wanted to develop internal and external trade so that the people would have rising standards of living. This would take a great deal of foresight and much planning ahead, and would need all the expert skill which such an organisation as the institute would be able to provide. Secretaries and accountants, he said, handled statistics frequently and realised their importance, hut there was still a necessity for greater appreciation of and training in their use. Correct statistics were one of their most vital and treasured possessions, and to omit the census, as one had been omitted in New Zealand, on the grounds of economy was a social crime. It meant that the Government was legislating in the dark. It could not hope to plan properly and did not really know the country It was administering. He would welcome the co-opera-tion of the Institute and others in the the Improvement of the Official Year Book. He wondered how many lines of activity in New Zealand had uniform costing systems. He believed that like third-party insurance, a uniform costing method should be compulsory.

The Monetary System.

’Continuing, Mr Nash said their problems could not be' solved merely by improvements in their monetary system. The Government’s policy was to make a full life possible to all. Its method was to remedy immediate necessitous cases, while carefully and methodically building foundations which would have permanence. Offers of help, advice and co-operation had been phenomenal, and they could xvin through if they were implemented. 1-Ie asked members of the Institute to interest themselves In New Zealand’s economic and social problems. 11 If the compulsion of circumstances is such that you are to go with ns one mile go (With us two,” he concluded.