IF--WE STOPPED BORROWING.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 October 1927, Page 1

IF--WE STOPPED BORROWING.

What would bo the effect on unemployment if we New Zealanders restricted ourselves to borrowing, say, £‘2,000,000 per annum? This is the question propounded in the annual review just published by Messrs Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd., of Christchurch. “There is not the slightest doubt,” proceeds the review, “that award wages would have to find a new level, imports would coine down with a. run, and that our cities would experience a serious slump. A drift towards the country would ensue, and perhaps prove to he the first step towards a genuine recovery and prosperity. It is only reiterating a truism to say that, given a fertile soil, the measure of its production is tho amount of labour applied to it. .Given unstinted labour, the land of New Zealand would yield many times its present production of things tho world wants. “Surely, then, there is something fundamentally wrong when unemployment and uncultivated land exist side by side. Tn plain English, labour is at present being drawn from the farms to the cities by various influences, the chief of which are protected industries and borrowed money spent largely in award rate of wages; and men not unnaturally stand idle rather than work for less.”