A NATIONAL POLICY.
tt rites tlie Auckland Herald:—The war lias taught us at least one lesson —that money for national' needs can be obtained within the country. Thus the asii'ied demand for its produce and the ability to develop its resources arc suflicicnt encouragement for the .Dominion to embark upon a bold national policy of progress and expansion. Beginning with the primary industries and spreading i'rom them to the secondary, this new fsosperify in all trade and commerce will provide n simple and successful scheme of repatriation. The most necessary, because the most effective, agency (o stimulate this development is obviously an energetic prosecution of public works—the completion of main trunk fail ways, tlie construction of branch lines, and tiio building of roads—on businesslike principles and by the employment of modern methods. The time has passed for casting responsibility upon events. Apathy and indolence in the public works administration are not the products of war conditions. .For thirty years great progressive undertakings have Been started to feed political enterprises that have drained the national recourccs in time of peace as well as of war. We would be the last to recommend a resumption of the Public Works policy of 1 1)13-14. The times demands a change of policy, a sharp turning away from the beaten path of political railways, the adoption of a comprehensive scheme of public works designed to meet national requirements and to open the way for the development •of tlie. country by the men who liavoj
helped to protect it from the designs of Ihe enemy. These men are more than soldiers. They have become engineers imd artificers, skilled in the arts 'A roadwaking, bridge-construction and railway building. tender the stern necessity of war they have, learned that ingenuity and industry will overcome every difficulty, that the common need must direct the course of action and set the rate of progress. These are men who carried the railway from TCI Kantara to Gaza, built roads through the devastation of Pieardy, and drove the tunnels of Yimy and Messincs.- Is it not simplicity itself to utilise their services in leading the arteries of progress into the idle lands of the Dominion bv an intelligent eo-cperation between the .Departments of Public Works and Land Settlement? Every season in New Zealand is a good season, though some are better than others, and by the initiation of a bold policy of public works, aiming at the completion of the main linos of communication and the development of such national assets as hydro-electric power, the country will be introduced to a new period of prosperity, in which its returned soldiers will find scope for their ability and its war debt be easily distributed upon the growing wealth of the people. The times demand men of vision and action in the administration of national affairs. The war has destroyed the petty standards of the past, and the policy for the future must bo self-reliant, virile and progressive.
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Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1918, Page 4
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494A NATIONAL POLICY. Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1918, Page 4
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