STATE SPENDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1939, Page 9

STATE SPENDING

NOT TO BE CURTAILED THIS YEAR MR FRASER’S DECLARATION. NO QUESTION OF PRODIGALITY (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. No amount of Opposition argument would persuade the.. Government to reduce its spending programme for the current year, declared the Acting-Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, when discussion on the Finance Bill entered the Committee stage in the House of Representatives yesterday.

“The Government requires this money,” tylr Fraser said. “It must get the money. Otherwise there will be nothing but disaster facing thousands of families in this country. Definitely that is not going to happen.” The Opposition discussion in Committee was opened by Mr Forbes (Hurunui), who said the Acting-Prime Minister’s head must be in a. whirl among all the millions of money called for. Authority W’as being taken to borrow just under £23,000,000, he said. There must be lots of economies which could be effected in the expenditure of that. sum. Did anyone suggest that if £1 were cut off that sum, the whole programme would collapse? MR NASH ON PRUDENCE. “When the Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, was addressing himself to the people of Great Britain he told them how prudent New Zealand was being,” said Mr Forbes, "but at the same time the Government was setting a record in borrowing and in the expenditure of money.” The Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Parry: “Quite unrepentant.” Mr Forbes: “There must be an end, no matter how easy it may be to get money from the Reserve Bank. In the end the 1.0.U.’s have to come home and have to be paid for by the produce of the country.” Mr Fraser, who followed Mr Forbes, said the people of the country would be safeguarded as far as human effort and enterprise could do it. The prosperity in the homes of the people that had existed during the past 31. years had been due to the increased purchasing power. The whole reason for the loan authority this year was that it would be disastrous to stop work that had been commenced. There was no question of any prodigality, Mr Fraser said. If any member of the House could point out what schemes were unnecessary, what projects should be reduced, or to what better purpose money could be devoted, then that would be examined by the Government. But the Government was not going to cut recklessly into expenditure and into the standard of living of the people.