LOAN MONEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1921, Page 2

LOAN MONEY.

QUESTION OF ALLOCATION. SOME UNFOUNDED HOPES. An impression appears to exist in some quarters that the flotation of the New Zealand loan in London is going to make possible a rapid expansion of public works expenditure in this country. The allocation of the loan money may not be known until the Prime Minister returns to the Dominion, and at present there is no official information to be obtained upon the subject. But figures that have been made public already by Ministers provide fairly clear evidence that the amount of money that has been raised, rather less than £5,000,000, is not large enough to justify hopes that the Public Works Department can extend its operations to any important extent.

Commitments and impending commitments for the purchase of hydro-elec-tric and railway plant and material in Britain are stated to amount to more than £2,000,000. The Public Works Fund is already in debt to the Consolidated Fund, and the Prime Minister' told Parliament last session that some part of the money taken from the revenue account for expenditure on public works might require to be repaid when a loan had been raised. The amount of money to credit of the Public Works Fund at the present time is known to be small, and the Minister at the head of the department has stated that his expenditure, which was to have been reduced to something like £200.000 a month, has been maintained at. a higher figure, in order to avoid accentuating the unemployment difficulty. Hydro-electric development in this country is continuing to absorb a great deal of money, and it appears that the expenditure under this heading will have to be enlarged substantially if a start is to be made with the Arapuni scheme, and if increased effort is to be put into the Waikaremoana scheme. Auckland people are urging very strongly that a start should be made with their scheme, which is going to cost more money than was originally estimated owing to the necessity that has arisen for an altered form of dam. Many local bodies are seeking Government money for works connected with the supply and distribution of hydro-elec-tric power. Ministers have no definite statements to make on the subject at present, but a Dominion reporter who made inquiries gathered that they do not think that the amount of the loan and th> manner in which it has been received by investors in Britain, justify much hope that the Government can undertake an ex u tended policy of development in the near future.