Costly Public Works Drain State Finances

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 410, 19 July 1928, Page 18

Costly Public Works Drain State Finances

LIMIT TO RESOURCES MINISTER AND PURSE STRINGS (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Querulous in their attitude whenever a limit to State expenditure is signalled, members of Parliament were to-day given some plain talk by the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, Minister of Finance, who said, without equivocation, that large public works at present on hand were too costly to permit any substantially greater measure of liberality in State Advances. “My efforts are strained to the utmost to cope with all demands,” said the Minister. SPHERE had been complaints of de- ■*" lay in the granting of State advances to settlers and workers, and it was to Mr. J. A. Nash (Palmerston North) that the Minister said that since 1924 the sum of £26,692,000 had been lent out, including new loans amounting to over £17,000,000. “If Mr. Nash will agree to allow the Palmerston North railway deviation to stand over for a few years, I shall be glad to provide more money for State advances.” Voices: Let it stand over. „ Mr. Downie Stewart said the programme of public works was at present enormous. There were huge railway workshops under construction in all th© four main centres. When these were completed he hoped the position would be somewhat easier. Then there were the hydro-electric works. Only this year the Waitaki scheme has been added, as a link between Coleridge and the Otago system. With such huge works on the schedule it was difficult to provide all that members wanted on State advances. ANOTHER HALF-MILLION Even so, continued the Minister, the Government would certainly put in more than half a million of new money this year. Mr. T. W. Rhodes, not new money. Mr. Downie Stewart: Yes, certainly, new money. Mr. Lee Martin: Why not put In enough to clean up appears? Mr. Downie Stewart: The trouble is that when we tried that before, raising a loan of five millions, there was immediately an avalanche of applicants. Mr. Lee Martin: Why not? It's a paying proposition. Mr. Downie Stewart: Yes, but is the State to be the only institution in New Zealand lending money? Mr. Le© Martin: You’re largely that now. With this observation the Minister disagreed. He went on to express the belief that the larger cities should be prepared to mak© a contribution toward a solution of the housing problems at present relieved by State advances. The cities raised money for other schemes, and since it was admitted that housing schemes were a good proposition, he didn’t see why they should not make a contribution toward a solution of their own housing difficulties. Mr. D. G. Sullivan (Avon) said that Christchurch had already done so. The Minister said he understood that Christchurch had done a great deal. “If we could finish these huge and expensive public works,” he concluded, there would be quite a lot to spare for State advances.