AGAINST A SLUMP.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 189, 27 August 1937, Page 4

AGAINST A SLUMP.

" It is exceedingly difficult to improvise schiemes of useful capital development or to indicate expenditure upon them unless careful pfeparations have been made beforehand," runa a letter in the London Times signed by twenty well-known eeonomists. "The type of development required, its geographical position, the machinery for its administration, the responsibility of difEerent authorities for its finance — the obstacles which such problems present to immediate action can be reduced and perhaps removed if plans have been carefully considered for some time in advance and if appropriate administrative machinery is already in existence. "In the present stage of active trade, when expenditure on rearmament is still rising, every type t)f capital expenditure by public bodies that can be postponed without detriment to the soeial services and to the needs of the specially depressed areas should be postponed until there are signs of a rocession in trade. At the same time, it is, in our opinion, of the utmost importance that careful preparations should be imtiated now, in order to ensure that the plans and administrative machinery necessary for a large increase in expenditure on capital development by public authorities are made ready,"