HARD WORK AND THRIFT

Hokitika Guardian, 15 January 1932, Page 8

HARD WORK AND THRIFT

CURE FOR DEPRESSION. ADDRESS TO UNIVERSITY SENATE. _ * DUNEDIN", Jan. 12. “No magic but that of hard v-ork and thrift will undo the lmvoe causeo by the persistent depression,” declares Professor ,J. Macmillan Brown, Gnan(jcllor of the New Zealand University, in his address to the University Senate. These recurring periods of depression, he said, must be kept steadily in view. They must never forget that in the prosperous times that preceded and followed them they must not spend all their revenue, but must save against the evil day. Thrift, the maker of man, must never he abandoned in any period of prosperity for those pernicious substitutes inilution and unproductive borrowing, substitutes that all governments, but especially Labour governments and colonial governments, had a strong tendency towards as the easiest way ous of the financial striats. LESSON FORGOTTEN.

“The lesson that Labour is getting drastically taught in the Homeland, he said, “is forgotten as soon as the cloud of depression lilts. This quick oblivion of the necessity of foreseeing economy does not follow immediately after the war that has destroyed the capital and caused the depression. There is a pause before the youngvi generation that has known neither the difficult climb out of the depths to prosperity, nor the destructive wastage of war, comes into power and the direction of affairs; and once tiny fall heir to the powers of the preceding generation, they think that the universal talisman and panacea which they have seen rescuing tnoir own and other countries out of the depths —borrowing—is as applicable to peace and recuperation as to the ravage's of war.

“The bulk of the men are still at the stage of life that is governed solely by the pursuit of pleasure, and they take their fill of it as they see their older comrades do who have returned. from the war. r I he lesson the war should have taught them they have not learned, and there is needed after a pause a long period ol bitter depression with its attendant' evils of unemployment and distress to teach them. But by the t-iqie the next generation comes to the guidance of alfairs, not only is this new tuition m thrift forgotten, but the horror of the wa-r and the clisgnst it engenders are swept out, and nothing less than a new war with its sequent depression is needed to inculate the necessity ol foresight and economy.”

AYISE ADM IN I STH ATI ON Professor Macmillan Brown said that in its first half century the New ! Zealand University was lucky in having as its treasurers men who realisI ed this and laid against the evil day that was sure to come. Pr. tessor Sh.,nd. who tilled the office during most of fclu* time, kept his balance -from fees and subsidy liquid. , When the depression came the Government timugnt not only about eutiing don n the subsidy, hut it looked enviously at the liquid balance of £70.0(10 which Professor Slumd and bis successors had squeezed out of the fees and subsidy to be a .scholarship fund in times of need. The Government saw, at last, that if they took that balance away they would have to replace it in the shape of scholarships. That lesson of thrift, be hoped, would not be forgotten even though they no longer had Professor Sham] to impress it upon them. “I conjecture." saifl Professor Broun “that this depression i;; not going to pass completely an ay soon any more than its post-Napoleonic predecessor of a century ago did. ■ There is no political or economical magic, such as some, of our Labour friends are so fond of suggesting to conjure away the results of this financial blizzard. Me shall have to replace the vanished capital by the same toilsome work and thought fill thrift as slowly built it up. What comes by gambling generally goes in the same easy way. It is only by hard work, aided by thought, that, a stable basis ol prosperity is attained, and in attaining or restoring this the very powers that originally gained it are strengthened and renewed.”