“ORGY OF EXPENDITURE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 510, 13 November 1928, Page 16

“ORGY OF EXPENDITURE”

WASTAGE ON RAILWAYS MR. R. B. SPEIRS’S VIEWS Without a single interjection a large audience at Herne Biay last evening fololwed with close attention a stirring indictment by Mr. R. B. Speirs of the Reform Government’s policy in regard to the railways and hydro-elec-tric schemes. Mr. M. J. Bennett presided. In any private commercial enterprise in times of stress the management would- consider reducing overhead. The Government, with the revenue of the railways falling annually, had started on an orgy of unnecessary expenditure. It had started two palatial railway stations to cost the country £500,000; it had sanctioned a deviation scheme in the Palmerston North district to cost about £600.000. A commission had reported that it did not see how the Taupo line, if put through, could be run at a loss of less than £30.000 a year; yet the Government had started it in a hurry on the eve of an election. In the present Prime Minister’s electorate there was a branch line that was being run at a loss of £782 a mile. In the late Mr. Massey’s electorate a branch line cost the country £937 a mile. In the Hon. O. J. Hawk.eu’s electorate another made a loss of £1,187 a mile. In the Hon. A. D. McLeod’s electorate another line made a loss of £1,297 a mile. “Do you wonder that I ask. is it not time that some commerciallyminded men were allowed to step inf and stop this orgy of expenditure?” Dealing with the construction of the Mangahao hydro-electric power scheme, the speaker referred to it as one of the greatest blunders in the history of the country. Under Sir Joseph Ward’s regime the railways had paid. Under his wise guardianship, also, the Lake Coleridge hydro-electric scheme had been started and had paid throughout. It was for the people to compare record with record and ask themselves whether the Reform Party’s policy made for economy and efficiency in administration. An attempt to ask a number of set questions by a small minority opposition was promptly counted out by the audience. The candidate was accorded a unanimous vote of thanks.