The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1927. POLITICIANS AND LUXURY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 52, 24 May 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1927. POLITICIANS AND LUXURY

IT is reasonable that representatives of the motor vehicle importing trade should resent the recent Ministerial condemnation of the use of motor-cars as a luxury. Their resentment is justified, though it involves the danger of exaggerating the importance of loose political utterances by several administrators who have not yet acquired mature wisdom. To-day, in our news columns, Mr. F. Farrell, as president of the Auckland Motor Traders’ Association, makes an effective reply to some of the economic nonsense spoken at A hangarei last week by the Minister of Health about luxuries. Oil that occasion the Hon. J. A. Young advised fax - mers to lock their motor-cars in garages for a year and deposit the keys in the strongrooms of the banks which, it may be added, never lose anything and are hardhearted toward the harassed men on the land. Of course, the Ministerial hyperbole was merely the smart comment that sounds well from a platform but which, in the light of commonsense, looks silly and is stupid. As Mr. Farrell properly has emphasised in excessively mild terms, motor transport has become an essential factor of rural development. Without the use of it, life in the backbloeks would still have been intolerable and a disgrace to politicians. The motor-ear and the motor-lorry have enabled hundreds of small farmers to work remote holdings which previously were parts of the wilderness. If Ministers would hold their tongues for a year or two and concentrate such wisdom as they possess on making better highways, the results would be more profitable to the Dominion in the form of more land settlement and increased production. It is.pointed out in reply to the Ministerial garrulity on the subject of imported luxuries that only one-tenth of the £■50,000,000 a year for our imports is paid abroad for motor vehicles, including cycles, accessories and petrol. Really, the amount is trivial, if compared with the money spent on luxurious soft goods (£10,000,000) and on tobaceo, wines and spirits (£2,655,909). Of these three groups of imports which represents the worst luxury? If responsible administrators consider it to be their duty to condemn luxuries, they should not hesitate to make their condemnation applicable to everything that comes within the classification of a luxury. Apart from utility altogether motoring for pleasure is no more vicious in the economic sense than spending money on expensive bowls, golf clubs and tennis racquets. It could be argued that much of the time spent on these pastimes and hobbies could be more profitably devoted to social service in the interests of the poor. It is easier to condemn luxuries than to eliminate them from this age of good times. The fact that New Zealand supports about a dozen Cabinet Ministers and suffers them to run up and down the country at the expense of the taxpayer is the most convincing proof that this is a land of luxury.