SIGNS OF PROSPERITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1939, Page 4

SIGNS OF PROSPERITY

SEEN BY PRIME MINISTER

TOTALISATOR FIGURES CITED.

INCREASE IN MARRIAGES

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON. This Day

"The figures appear to indicate a substantial measure of prosperity on the part of not a few people—on the part of the tens of thousands who go to races.” said the Prime Minister. Mr Savage, when commenting in an interview yesterday on the totalisator turnover during the Christmas and New Year holiday racing carnival.

At the 22 race meetings held during that period racegoers backed their fancies to the extent of £1,224.873. This is the second year since 1929-30 that the betting figures have passed ' the million mark, and they were i £190.000 above those for the corresponding period last year. “Whether we like the nature of the investment or not.” Mr Savage said, “the fact is that people cannot bet unless they have the money to do it ' with. When the figures go up, as they | did during the recent racing carnival, i that is a fair indication of prosperity | on the part of the rank and file of the I people.” MARRIAGE STATISTICS. I The Prime Minister said that prac- | tically every other set of figures people . care to look at revealed the same position. In the marriage market it would be seen that records had been set also. "I think it is a fair indication to be be drawn from the marriage figures for the past year to say that they reflect prosperity on the part of the young people of the country,” Mr .Savage said. “They seem to think they have a greater measure of prosperity and security for the future than they have ever had before. I do not think that is an extravagant statement to make.” The Prime Minister commented also on the building figures for the past year. In Wellington £1,034,334 was expended on new buildings, alterations and additions, and that figure does not take into account the vast building programme of the Government in the city and the State housing scheme in the suburbs. BUILDING PROGRESS. "Before the election anyone would have thought there was no private building going on; that the Government was strangling building,” he said. “Since the election, however, even the Press admits that there has been a measure of improvement -there. The figures for building permits are mounting everywhere. I am not saying they are mounting rapidly enough. “I am signing letters every day to people living in one room with their families,” he continued. “Who can sit down while that is going on? We have to go still faster and produce more houses. There is no other solution to the housing problem. After all, a high standard of life in New Zealand means decent housing accommodation.”

Everything that went to make up the standard of life could be produced by the people of New Zealand, Mr Savage said, just as well as it could be by other countries in the world. “The appeal of the Government, and my appeal,” he said, “is to the people of this country to assist.in the making of a standard of life that will be a credit to the Dominion.”

The Government, he said, did not need to be told that therd were difficulties ahead. There always had been difficulties for anyone who tried to do anything worth doing, because people who were well enough off now did not want any change, and did not want to take any chances. “The Government will have a lot of opponents,” he said. "I have had a lot. I will have them in the future, but I have some friends, too.” '