The Press Monday, March 7, 1932. Public Works Expenditure.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20489, 7 March 1932, Page 8

The Press Monday, March 7, 1932. Public Works Expenditure.

One of the recommendations of the Committee of economists is that expenditure on public works, instead of being curtailed as sharply as the present financial situation makes necessary, should be maintained in the case of essential works by the issue of Bills on the Treasury. In 193031 this expenditure was £6,082,000, and Mr Coates, in his 1 recent statement, announced that this sum would be reduced to £1,234,000 m 1931-32 by means of a vigorous curtailing, not only of projected works, but of works in the course of construction. The Committee, which must not be suspected of having Mr Coates's statement in mind, since its discussions are purely general, points out that a cessation of loan expenditure would deepen the depression and "would be " economically unsound, because it "would leave uncompleted some loan "works, and thus involve the commu"nity in a dead loss on account of "indebtedness created by the expenditure on the uncompleted works." The Committee admits, however, that it might pay the community to aban-

don works which will not be productive when completed, and cut the loss. As a general argument this is sound, but it is very difficult to give it a practical application. Most people, and Canterbury people in particular, will think of it in terms of hydroelectricity schemes, which accounted for £1,069,000 of our loan expenditure in 1931-32, and on which, according to Mr Coates, only £300,000 is to be spent in the coming year. There have been indications for some years that hydroelectric development has been proceeding too far in advance of the Dominion's needs, and that- .it might have been cheaper to use coal instead of water as a generating medium. It is not easy, however, to make definite judgments; the prospective usefulness of the Waitaki scheme, for instance, depends not only on the problem of how much electricity Canterbury will be able to use in ten or twenty years' time, but also on the even more difficult problem of the future of the Lake Coleridge plant. Nor must it be forgotten that the financial aspect of electricity development is not the only aspect. One of the reasons for preferring water generation to coal generation was that tjie latter method would have given industrial malcontents a powerful weapon against the" community, and that, 1 as we learnt during the War, • is a danger that cannot be risked too cai*elessly. One thing, however, must be said again —we have been saying it for many years —and said plainly. The difficulty of deciding what works are likely to be productive, and the very fact that there are unproductive works, show how necessary it is that Parliament should abdicate its right to con-

trol public works policy in detail. The control of Parliament is no control at all, since the average member never knows, and never cares, what a Public Works Statement involves. But wo owe it to the system that presumes Parliamentary control that expenditure bv this Department has in Itself almost ruined the country, and the danger Will remain as long as the system remains. It is to be hoped that this will not be longer than the present session of Parliament.