The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1917. A DOG-IN-THE-MANGER LAND POLICY.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 December 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1917. A DOG-IN-THE-MANGER LAND POLICY.

(With which is Incorporated The Tai hapo Post and Walmarino News).

... ..There may be his equals, but we do ngt ithink ~there: . is, An- this., country, a more capable ,or reliable student of mankind or of national economics man the chairman of the Efficiency Board, Mr William Ferguson. Neither politics, parish pump or self-interest can warp or twist his judgments and views on what his reasonings have led him to determine are best for mankind in general and for New Zealand in particular. No man is looked up to for a saner, more ..just, more temperate and practical opinion, upon social and economic problems than he is, and his replies to queries, together .with his own postulates, are given heedless of either' faction or individual. We know that the report made to Parliament by the Efficiency Beard from its very nature, could not satisfy a body of men representing widely conflicting interests, and although it is not our intention to further refer to that report, we may say that ninetynine per cent of people having any knowledge of economics agreed with its recommendation in almost every particular. It is when his opinions are expressed informally, without preparation, that the chairman of the Efficiency Board is most interesting. It is then that the cold, ungarnished facts, which strike home the hardest, fall from him. On occasions they are, incidentally, strong indictments of what politicians have forced upon us, a showing in bold relief how the selfinterest of some so lamentably conflict with the best interests and with the progress of the nation. Only recently Mr Ferguson said, Kew Zealand was to be congratulated on the fact that all her people were workers. That this statement required some qualification is borne out by his very next sentence. He said that harder work still must be done in the future. This amounts to a rather serious reflection on the economic laws placed Oq our Statute Book. He pointed out that our national and local bodies’ debts had doubled in the last ten years, while our produce and exports ■had not kept up with our increased liabilities. In other words, we open the national ledger to find that in the last few years our national business has gone to the bad to an alarming extent. We find that in 1910 our net debt amounted to 73 millions, about £74 per head, while we now owe 125 millions, or about £ll4 per head, and this does not include the indebtedness of our local bodies which amounts to another 24 millions, a total indcoteuness of about 150 millions. Excess of our exports, including everything has only increased since 1910 by about two millions, roughly by 35 per cent, and this largely being due to the extraordinary values caused by the war, and not to any appreciable increase in the volume exported. Even with these unprecedented prices for our produce

the excess of exports over imports is only just about enough to .pay the interest oil our debt. Will every thoughtful man amongst us ask himself what is going to happen if our produce recedes In value, while our liability for interest on a growing debt is mounting up? The Efficiency Board has drawn the attention of the country to our appalling laxuess, our almost criminal neglect of the business aspects of ,our administration, and told us and our Government that our exports must be increased if we are to pay our way # Members of the Government have now taken up the cry, “We must produce more. ’lt is bewildering to know why steps were nor taken to produce more while the debt was mounting up; no steps are being taken now to produce more so as to make increased production meet growing liabilities. There is only one way of paying our way without increasing what we -have to sell and that is by drawing upon principle Instead of on earnings. Well, we all know that leads to bankruptcy. Mr uerguson hopes that the day of vil.age .settlements is not far distant. c, in all seriousness, point Mr Ferg usuii to ,oiu settled districts where .atu is oemg so depopulated by me ope.aliens of the Government’s -.upiu lami policy that one time wellaiUiiided senoois now have to close down because there are no children .u render them needful. The chairman of the Efficiency Board has visions or village settlements, while the country’s inefficiency administration favours the massing of small holdings

into huge runs. Vv'hiie inis insane policy is persisted in, reducing ihe volume and vaiu eox exports, our debts are mounting up. National bills are pressing which must be paid; the goods we have for sale do not furnish me money, and the Minister for Finance nas already intimated that Ihe omy taxation the Government il consent to is that through the customs. Of course, every sensible person realises that this means the perpetuation of labour troubles. Almost an united press has urged the necesnty of greater production. The chairman of the ihiuciency Board has told me country that production must he mcreased if oar.: (.'liabilities are to be auiipuied. - ,’Tjie fact..stares this coun-’

-ry squarely in hue face, that,'inn fowl yearjS,v.itotal iudebtecinessulraS nearly doubled;: while ciur proftfshdiu ; exports oven imports remains in '-ordinary values,; that is in- volume, stationery. There is; no use in trying to turn our faces from the fact that-the business of the country has been so conducted that huge levies,,will have to be made on capital by way of taxation independent of what is done through the customs, and all because we have not the common sense, "or the common desire to produce more. Wo have ample money in the land to wipe out our national debt in a few years; but pure greed of some, stand in the way of extracting from thb land the wealth that lies there in abundant amplitude. We shall be told that our increased indebtedness is owing to the war, but that is puerile nonsense, although perfectly true. Our stupidity lies !n the fact that while our debts are growing to an alarming extent, wc have made no effort to increase our income to enable us to meet them, neither have we economised. On the other hand we have followed a course that is positively bewildering to economists. A course that leads to an appallingly decreased production. Whatever our politicians may do in the future the fact now remains that - tIL country’s debt totals about 150 million pounds, and we leave it to the nation’s common-sense to realise that with a production that only returns a trifle more than is sufficient to pay interest on this sum, the goods we sell must be hugely augmented, or we must use up our capital, our savings, to pay our way. We are no longer running a sound national business.