The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1027. A CAUTIOUS TREASURER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 40, 10 May 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1027. A CAUTIOUS TREASURER

THEBE never has been much palaver in or about the polities of the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, but even his best friends have thought that he sometimes speaks with his tongue in his cheek. It looks as though one-of these odd occasions was experienced last evening at Feilding’, where the Minister of Finance made an informative statement on national finance and the effects of its condition on the real welfare of the country. In emphasising the necessity for borrowing money only for essential public works, and the greater need of spending it wisely and well, Mr. Stewart donned the mantle of the prophet and peered into the future. His prophetic vision was one of those innocent delights which even the most sombre of statesmen occasionally snatches from a prosaic life. He foresaw the time when, after a few more peak years of expenditure on the completion of hydro-electric schemes and railway lines and improvements, it will not be necessary to go abroad for loans. If this has any political meaning at all, it clearly means that the Reform Government, whose financial record already beggars that of the worst spendthrift Liberal Administration, will enjoy the final welter of borrowing from the responsive money market in London, and then will challenge the right or the necessity of the first Labour Government to raise loans' overseas. In other words, when there is nothing left to pawn abroad, Labour can have the pleasure of discovering a new pawnshop. The Minister carefully overlooked the fact that, within the next seven years, the sum of the State loans, excluding Imperial debt repayments and Treasury Bills, is nearly £55,000,000. It will he a iong time yet before New Zealand administrators cease borrowing away from home. It is to be regretted that the Treasurer was not able last evening to promise any material relief from the present undue burden of taxation, or any substantial measure of administrative economy. Things are to be much the same as they have been under the Reform regime, and possibly a little worse before they become better. Retrenchment in tlie Public Service is deemed to he impracticable for the simple reason that such a policy merely would increase unemployment. Thus nothing is left for the people, who have to pay heavily for inferior polities, than the old-fashioned policy of hard work, thrift, and simple living, supported all the time by a valiant optimism. The quicker everybody accepts the stark truth of things and makes an end to extravagance and nonsense, the sooner New Zealand will move toward solid prosperity. It would he foolish to depend altogether on politicians.