MODERN EXPENDITURE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5517, 23 December 1929, Page 1

MODERN EXPENDITURE

PROGRESS IN INVENTIONS; STRAIN ON OUR RESOURCES. The developments $ science and the demands of modern civilisation are placing a severe strain upon the resources of the people of New Zealand, as in most other parts of the world. Commenting on this fact, the Woodville “Examiner” says :— “First, there came the motor-car and its expensive accessories. Then the gramophone, electric fight, and radio. Now the aeroplane is appealing to the imagination and the purse. What the next invention for the so-called betterment of society will be one cannot say. We are in a whirlpool of progress. Things are moving with a rapidity which is almost bewildering. In the pursuit of luxury and pleasure money does not appear to count. If it were possible to approximate the cost of the inventions of the last two or three decades, to the people of New Zealand alone, the figures would be staggering in their immensity. Sometimes one is tempted to ask whether a young country, with a limited population, can stand the strain that is being placed upon its resources, and whether the increased expenditure has been attended with a commensurate increase in the happiness of the people. But in these days of superficiality such considerations are not permitted to enter too largely into the discussions of things.”