MORE SUNSHINE CURE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 98, 16 December 1931, Page 4

MORE SUNSHINE CURE

Before his departure to confer with the Canadian Minister of Industries and Commerce at Honolulu, the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, has made his little contribution towards the Christmas spirit of jollity and good cheer. This is the bright thought for to-day wbicb Mr. Stewart leaves behind him while he goes to chat of butter and tariff walls and preferential duties in the appropriate setting of moonlight and eoral beaches, leaving behind him his unfortunat^ f ellow countrymen to contemplate the enticing future he has'painted to carry them into the New Year. This is Mr. Stewart's message of Christmas cheer: — "Altogether, in spite of the additional provisions of the Supplementary Budget and the heavy extra burclens the people have been asked to carry, the chances of making ends meet in the Consolidated Fund for this financial year are rapidly disappearing. The prospects are that next financial year will be still more difficult. Under these circumstances further substantial reductions in public expenditure will be absolutely necessary and all State services, including what are commonly known as the social services, will again have to be overhauled and reviewed in the light of present-day conditions." These encouraging prognostications .should do a great deal to fortify the country until Mr. Stewart has returned strengthened by his conversations in Honolulu, and ready to take up the Crusader's mace 'once again. Mr. Stewart, of course, is Minister of Financej an unfortunate predicament, in which he will have the sympathy of all who understand the difficulty of being Minister without a great deal of finance, and upon him naturally clevolves the duty of breaking any bad news as it is received. But while extending every sympathy to Mr. Stewart, it is interesting to eompare his mournful cadences with recent statements made by another gentleman who, although^ not a politician, still has some claim to distinction. This is Professor A. H. Tocker, of the Chair of Economics at Canterbury College. In a recent -speech he made some remarks which, when applied to this latest contribution of Mr. Stewart's, furnish interesting ' food*for reflection upon the judgment with which various of the Dominion's politicians employ the "blunt frankness" attitude which appears to have now become so popular among them. "There is plenty of money in the world, just as much as there was in the good years of 1928-29, and the wc/ld has adequate means for .the production of goods. All that is wanted is confidence on the part of the world's people," said Professor Tocker. He referred to the recent sensational fall in the value of the sterling, and after stating that Europe was in an "economic mess," declared that the trouble was to a considerable extent psychological. "When the great body of consumers were afraid to buy, trade suffered, more unemployment was caused, and the downward drift made it apparently all the more necessary for individuals to conserve their finances. One could not tell to what depths of trade depression such a policy would bring the world. The want of confidence could have almost limitless effects." While admitting, of course, that Professor Tocker has no political qualifications to entitle him to such outrageously unorthodox views of the depression, readers of these divergent opinions, may be pardoned for speculating whether messages of the type broadcast by New Zealand's Minister of Finance, do not very largely contribute to the "pschycological trouble" of which the professor speaks. It may be, of course, that Mr. Stewart's farewell message will inspire confidence in thousands of Christmas shoppers, but we are inclined to doubt it. It is a moot point whether it is the duty of politicians to maintain this attitude of telling the •world and ignoring the cost, or whether they might not better serve the country by endeavouring to restore a little of that confidence which their persistent .pessimism has done so much to undermine. In the past too many politicians painted all land- | scapes in roseate hues; now' they appear to have swung to;.the I opposite extreme of holding a wake at every possible opportunity.