CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1922, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE ROAD BACK TO PROSPERITY. (To the Editor;. Sir, —It is a matter for general con . gratulation that the Welfare League is now joining actively in the effort to ; induce the Government to such i reductions in the public expenditure as I will enable it in the near future to materially lessen the huge burden of taxa- I tion under which the \Vhole country is staggering. Mr. Harper, the secretary of the League, broke no new ground in his address to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce the other day, but he quoted a number of facte and figures • concerning the growth of the administrative expenditure of the various Departments of State, which were simply appalling. The total net expenditure of the Dominion between 1914 and 1922, a period of eight years, increased from £11,825,863 to £28,466,838, while • the net revenue, which, of course, had to be maintained by increased taxation, increased from £12,131,761 to £28,127,007. The casual person, who will not trouble to make himself acquainted with the facte, is content to accept this huge increase in the public expenditure as an inevitable result of the war. “Oh, yes,” he says„ “but there is the interest and sinking fun<Xs on the war loans, and the additional payments in the way of pensions.” He is ignorant of the facte, and remains, if not indifferent, wholly apathetic. But, setting aside the 'payments for interest and sinking funds and pensions altogether, as we must do in making a useful comparison, the annual expenditure between 1914 and 1922 increased from £8,937,813 to £13,301,866. This means that the permanent expenditure (including, that is, interest, sinking fluids and pensions) during the eight I year period increased by nearly 252 per I cent., and the annual expenditure (excluding these particular charges) by over 104 per cent. During the previous eight-year period, from 1906 to 1914, the expenditure (including interest, sinking funds and pensions) increased from £7,122,340 to £11,825,863, or slightly more than fis per cent. What has happened, so fair as can be ascertained from the official documents, may be stated in a few plain figures. The staffs of all the State Departments, excepting forking railways, between 1914 and 1922 increased in numbers from 11,587 to 17,564, and their total salaries grew from £1,914,016 to £4,328,856. The expenditure of the Railway Department during the same period grew from £3,004,180 to £6,473,233; of the Education Department from £1.131.755 to £2,580,562; and of the Poet and Telegraph Department from £1.170,882 to £2,448,687. The salaries in the Post and Telegraph Office grew from £669,245 to £1,699,828; in the Prisons Department from £25,696 to £58.830; in the Police Department from £156,057 to £330,934; in the Public Health Department from £ll- ; 326 to £84,374; in the Tourist Department from £5722 to £41,074; in the Lands and Survey Department from i £99,799 to £184,959; in the Agricul- ! tural Department from £87,978 to 1 £171,356, and in the Education Depart- ; ment from £65,468 to £109,064. The ' great increase in salaries came during the “boom time” between 1918 and 1921. ' when everything in the garden was lovely, and the Government thought, as a 1 great majority of the public did, that the civil servants should participate in ’ the good things that were going. But 1 the circumstances of to-day are very different from those of two or three * vears ago. The Railways and the Post and Telegraph Office, instead of being a 1 help to the revenue, as they were foi

many years, are now a burden upon the taxpayer, and the non-earning departments have become a vastly greater burden than they were before. I do not wish to suggest that the salaries of the civil servants alone should be “economised.'’ Retrenchment, reorganisation, ' greater efficiency and harder work are •urgently required everywhere. The i Railway Department and the Post and Telegraph Department, in particular, ' stand sorelv in need of a thorough overhaul. While the railway expenditure be- | tween 1914 and 1922 rose from £2.880.i 323 to £6.473,233, the net earnings of the j system fell from £1.163.005 to £210,1002. Tn the case of the poet and telegraph service, while the salaries of the staff, as already stated, rose from £699,245 to £1.699.828, the returns for the year just closed show an enormous decrease in the business done. These deplorable results, it is fair to assume, were not brought about by inefficiency or slackness on the part of the staffs, but by the unsound methods employed by the ; management, such as reducing services and increasing charges, in its efforts to restore these departments to their former financial position. But the situation demands immediate and drastic measures to place the country’s finances in a sound condition, and the members of the public service cannot reasonably expect to be exempt from the sacrifices practically every other member of the

community is being called upon to make. It' is safe to say there is not a capitalist, a business man. a farmer, a professional man. a tradesman, or a manual worker that is not feeling the pinch in one way or another, Ono of the few comforting reflections we have in these troublesome times is that we are no worse off than our neighbors. But whatever sacrifices may be imposed upon the State employees, the Government has a right to remember that a servant who can be profitably employed is not an extravagance, and an obligation to discharge in seeing that the great principle of equality of sacrifice is as closely observed as possible in all its economies. The rehabilitation of the public finances. as Mr. Harper observed in his address to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, is not a party question. It Ought not to be a class one. We have heard far too much about the ‘‘Red Feds’ from one section of critics —the Welfare League, by the way. among them—and far too much about the “capitalists” from another. Neither of these handfuls of people is going to mould the destinies of this great little country, and neither of them is going to extricate it from its passing troubles. The£e are the tasks of the great sane majority, composed mainly of working people, that wait<s only a bold lead from the Government to put its shoulder to the wheel, to insist upon the absolutely necessary economies that will make possible the imperative reduction in taxation, and so start the Dominion on the road back to its former prosperity. —I am. etc.. TAXPAYING WORKER.