LUXURIES AND NECESSITIES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1771, 9 June 1913, Page 4

LUXURIES AND NECESSITIES.

The Hon. W. Fhaser made an interesting specch at Waiau, in Canterbury, on Saturday evening, _ in tho course of which he dealt, briefly but in very outspoken fashion with some financial and other matters. Most people will agree with his statement that in the past too much money has been spent on luxurious public buildings, while the_ country settlers have been kept waiting for roads and bridges. Of course, buildings are a necessity, and it is also necessary that they should be extended from time to time to _ keep pace with the growth of business; but it should always be remembered that the development of the country is the first consideration in connection with Public Works expenditure, and wc must be content to be a little less ambitious for a while as far as Departmental architecture is concerned. In many cases all that is required for efficiency could have been provided at much less cost than has been incurred. It is not a question of parsimony, but simply of expending the money available to the best advantago from the point of view of the Dominion as a whole. Mr. Fraser is unduly generous to past Governments when lie states that they were not responsible for the extravagances in this matter to which he referred. He says the people themselves were to blame. But surely it is the business of every Government worthy of the name to see that public money is wasted in bricks and mortar while the people who are carving out homes ; in the back-blocks are unable to get their goods to market for want of roads and bridges. It is no use putting people on tho land and then making it impossible for them to stay there with any degree of comfort or-profit. 'Mr. Fraser fully recognises that it is necessary to borrow if the country is to be properly developed, but he is rightly determined that the money thus obtained shall be put to the best use. The country has become, so accustomed in tho past to the insincere and futile jpolicy of promising anything and everything that when a Ministor makes a plain and candid statement of this character he expect a certain class of shallow critics to charge him with pessimism. As a matter of fact, tho most pessimistic people in the country at the present moment are the discredited remnant of a once-powerful party which is now known as the Opposition, and they vainly hope -that if they call other people pessimists loud enough andoften enough, they will keep up their own spirits, and also divert the attention of the public from their own melancholy plight. The game is, however, too palpable to be effective, and if the Government only gt>' straight on with an energetic ■ policy of development—progressive without being extravagant —they need not worry about the foolish epithets of their disgruntled opponents.