PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21304, 24 December 1940, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondents whose letters are welcome, but for ! whoso views we have no respon- ; sibility. Correspondents are requested to write in ink. It is ■ essential that anonymous writers enclose their proper names as a guarantee- of good faith. Unless this rule is complied with, their letters will not appear. POWER EXTENSIONS (To the Editor) Sir, —The Waitomo Pov/er Board Is authorised to spend £II,OOO on line construction to make a supply available to the State lignite mine and the village of Mangapeehi. The guarantee of £ISOO suggests a loading of approximately 250 k.w. with a variable load factor, a capital outlay of £44 per kilowatt. This in wartime, and the country facing a definite power shortage. It augurs ill for our industrial future when this type of engineering is accepted without a challenge. A very large percentage of the output of +his mine is slack, and there will be available for steam generation a grade of slack coal which, from an economic point of view, it will not pay to transport elsewhere. With a suitable type of grate very economical steam generation is possible ar.d a selling price for power fully 25 per cent below the Power Board’s best figure. Good robust steam plant is available in New Zealand, at such a low figure that the complete installation, with suitable stand-by plant, could be placed in operation on the site for a capital outlay of under £4OOO. I refer to a statement by an Auckland Power Board official claiming an efficiency (thermal) for his boiler plant of over 90 per cent—an impossible figure, and one which so far has not been attained in the most modem super-station of the British grid system. No, we have our Mines Council and voluminous industrial efficiency legislation, but what is it all but “hot air”? Under the present regime it will remain as such.— I am, etc., K.V.A. Cambridge, December 23. DOUGLAS CREDIT (To the Editor) Sir, —Your report of John Hogan’s address in Hamilton reveals some extraordinary statements on the part of the speaker. He says “it is wrong to suppose there is any natural reason for a post-war slump.” From this I presume the remedy or preventive is the issue of social credit, which simply means pouring out unlimited quantities of State paper-money. Now tnis is exactly what Germany did after the last war; trillions of paper marks were issued, and what was the result? The whole nation crashed and has been in beggary ever since. So much for the social credit of Germany. It is very clear that a country maj' issue tons of money and yet be poor because what a war-stricken country needs most is not domestic money issued in huge sums that forces prices up, but overseas securities to enable two-way trade to be carried on. Overseas securities can only be built up by the selling of goods to other countries, and war almost completely stops such trade, and the stoppage of trade means a slump. Social credit has no cure for this. Mr Hogan may be right that “New Zealand would not be impoverished” because we produce the urgentlyneeded food for other countries, but what will happen if these warstricken countries can only give us 6d a lb for butter and cheese, 3d for meat and 3d for wool? I can give Mr Hogan the answer—there will be another bad depression in New Zealand, social credit or no social credit. Here is another stupid statement. He says “State-created money is the only way of avoiding the debt-in-perpetuity system.” Perhaps he or Mr Young will tell us how the issue of State credit will procure huge quantities of steel, metals of all sorts, ships, railway engines, tea, coffee, sugar, silken goods, cotton goods, drugs, surgical instruments and a thousand other things we must buy from overseas, v Do these one-track minds realise that all these goods can be procured only in exchange for New Zealand farm produce? But evidently Mr Hogan intends that social credit shall be used to promote industrial enterprise, which in a small way we can do, but industries in New Zealand mean less buying from Britain and the repercussion will come when Britain refuses to buy our farm produce. Until the war came we were tied down to a quota on mutton and lamb. I am just old-fashioned enough to believe that the good things of life cannot be got by printing bank notes, but by hard work and the sweat of the body. v I think that such schemes as socialism and social credit originate from men. suffering from inertia, or laziness. As far as debt-in-perpetuity goes, there is no need of it at all, for we are quite able to pay our debts. The national income of New Zealand averages about £150,000,000 a year, and this splendid income has accrued to us by borrowing for development. Of £282,000,000 debt in 1935, £60,000,000 represented expenses of the World War and £122,000,000 was borrowed in New Zealand. Apart from the war costs the whole of the £282,000,000 was spent on a network of roads, railways and bridges, loans to settlers, hydro-electric works, etc., without which we could not have become prosperous. In 1935 the amount owing overseas was approximately £160,000,000, and it is absurd to say that with a national income of £150,000,000 we could not clear that debt in a few years; but no, we prefer increased luxuries to paying our just debts. Of course under the Labour Government our position is much worse, for apart from the present war our debt has increased by £50,000,000, and heaven only knows what we have to show for it. These wild schemes of socialism and social credit seem to indicate that we are losing our sanity.—l am, etc., W. P. KENAH. Raglan. December 23.