The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1930 THE DAY OF RECKONING

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 941, 7 April 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1930 THE DAY OF RECKONING

A USTRALIA’S day of reckoning is a gruelling experience for a self-deluded people. After failing with typical casualness to pay for an extravagant way through ten years of political carnival the Commonwealth has been called upon abruptly to square its distorted accounts and make an end to the worst practices of economic profligacy. In order to avoid a smash like that in the early ’nineties, Australia must reduce its foreign expenditure by about 40 per cent, at the least this year, and depend on its own resources for raising money. The overseas pawnbroker (to us.e an Australian term) lias declined to accept any more of Australia’s pledges in the meantime.

In the financial crisis that at long last lias overtaken a merry country, there is a lesson for all feckless and reckless politicians and their dupes. If it be accepted in the right spirit in Australia that debt-ridden continent should be able to pull through with nothing worse in its memories and misery than a useful experience of harder work, less extravagance and, let it be hoped, the development of better political wisdom. Administrators and -party politicians in New Zealand would not be wasting their time if they studied the processes of Australia’s drift and the necessity of curtailing the bad habit of living comfortably at the expense of posterity.

For the past decade Australia, with but little thought for the future, which has become the present, has been “loafing on posterity at the rate of £50,000,000 a year. In that period it borrowed close on £230.000,000 from overseas lenders. Last year it was compelled to borrow in that patient market sufficient money to pay the whole-of its interest—over £30,000,000 —on foreign debt. Moreover, because of the excess of imports over exports, it had also to raise a loan to meet the adverse balance in trade. That trade adversity has mounted up in deficits within the past six years to the unparalleled sum of £90,000,000. So long as investors abroad were willing to keep on advancing money without stint, a succession of Governments, Federal and State, did not worry about the future. Here and there the ■politicians were warned, but they were deaf to all warning. And, as usual, they had not the moral courage to tell the people the whole truth concerning the Commonwealth’s financial plight. They raised their own salaries with characteristic generosity, ran up and down the country braying optimism, and proved themselves masters of political duplicity and dopery. The truth has been laid bare to the foreign capitalist, thanks largely to the service of the British Economic Mission which last year politely emphasised the folly of Australia’s loan policy and the dangerous extent of national exti'avagance, ctnd the Commonwealth’s creditors, knowing the truth in terms of accountancy- the acid test of politics as it is of business—were compelled to take drastic action. Australian credit has been rationed severely, Commonwealth notes are not convertible into gold or that which gold can purchase outside Australia, and the supply of loan money temporarily has been stopped. Thus a country whose industrial unionists hold the world’s record for declaring things black on the flimsiest pretext has itself been declared black on most valid reasons.

Frankness has been forced into the mouths of responsible politicians who now must tell the people a clear daylight story crowded with unpleasant facts. Let it go to the credit of the deluded administrators that they are meeting a desperate situa-tion-with valorous wisdom, of which most, it is admitted, has been acquired in the form of advice from financial experts and competent men of business. It is remarkable how, in times of crises, the politician has to go outside the magic circle of politics for practical knowledge. In any case, Australia, as an incorrigible debtor, has to face obligations without shirking and without any prospect of escaping payment, for there can be no repudiation of debts. The new super-tariff tax will help, but it alone will not solve the problem. Australians will have to surrender hundreds of extravagances and be content with simpler pleasures. Things will have to be worse before they can become better. The people know what is wrong; it is their duty to effect a remedy. Australians, in sport, are at their best with their back's to the wall. Let them show the same spirit in tackling the serious things in national life.

THE PERIL OF THE CROSSINGS

1H- every addition to the number of cars, buses and motor- »* cycles on the roads of New Zealand, the peril of the railway crossings increases. This is tragically borne out by the dreadful consequences of a collision between an unscheduled train and a motor-bus at a level-crossing north of Whangarei on Saturday evening. The impressions and testimony of those who survived the tragedy will not be available until the inquest is reopened, but whatever line this testimony takes, it cannot affect the general principle that level-crossings are a dangerous and undesirable feature of our highways system. In this case the sad loss of six lives is given added poignancy by the fact that frequent representations have been made to have the fatal crossing eliminated. I\ hen a, crossing smash occurs on an open intersection in broad daylight, responsibility may frequently be traced to the neglect of the motorist. With accidents that occur at night, n °( ; so easily apportioned. The sad fact is that'at scores of New Zealand railway crossings, the coincident arrival of train and ear at the crossing provides the only ingredient necessary to produce a tragedy. The North Auckland Peninsula abounds in these sort of crossings. They begin within five miles of the Auckland railway station. The Argyle Street crossing at Mount Albert is, of course, notorious. There is another near Kingsland, where a side-street climbs to the level of the railway line from New North Road, ’fliere, as at many another crossing, the railway line is concealed both ways, and in certain conditions no motorist could avoid a collision. There is another crossing at New Lynn which is equally bad. Yet to representations that the programme of eliminating deathtrap crossings be accelerated, the Government remains callously indifferent. two things protect the railway system. One of them is the traditional “right-of-way” with which railways were vested generations ago, long before twentieth-century road traffic was dreamed of. Today conditions have altered. As many people travel by car as travel by train, and they have a right to protection from the menace of the crossings. The second legislative hedge behind which the Railway Department shelters is the legislation passed to define and harden the I'esponsibilities of eardrivers. One of the requirements of this legislation is that drivers should actually stop their cars and inspect the line before continuing. \et there are crossings at which this would be quite again, a train could sweep round the curve,and be on top of him.