PUBLIC WORKS FINANCE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 September 1939, Page 6

PUBLIC WORKS FINANCE.

WITH the war raising, amongst others, extraordinary financial demands, the development of a new outlook evidently is needed not least where public works are concerned. In Ins annual .Statement, presented to Parliament yesterday, the Minister of Public Works (Mr Semple) observed that:— Since this Government assumed office the general prosperity of the country has increased, and it naturally follows that an ' expansion in public works is necessary not only to keep pace with, but to stimulate and promote development. Tn the considerations thus advanced, the Minister finds justification for a heavy continuing expenditure on-highways and other roads, the completion of railways, hydro-electric works, the construction and improvement of aerodromes, the erection of public buildings, irrigation, land improvement, n\ei protection and various other works. A not expenditure under these various heads last yeai 01. close on £l7in (including £12.2m of loan moneys), and a projected net expenditure for the current year ol £20.2m weie in fact seriously open to question even in conditions of peace. Against the Minister’s view that an expansion in public works is'necessary, “not only to keep peace with, but to stimulate and promote'development,’’ there is ample evidence that New Zealand is spending much more than it can afford on a number of kinds of development works. Many of these works are capable at best of yielding only a distant economic return and some of them are hardly to be graded even in that categoij. The Minister speaks, for example, of the provision 01. better transport facilities for our primary and secondary industries, but an outstanding feature of the development, of the Dominion is the establishment of wastelully duplicated and competing road and railway transport routes. Most, though not all, 01. Hie public works'on which money is being spent so lavishly are in themselves desirable enough, but it would be vastly to the advantage of Ihe Dominion if its industrial development and expansion could be accelerated and its population increased, even if this meant reducing public works to a minimum lor the lime being. It is hardly necessary in the conditions that have now arisen to elaborate these contentions. With the Dominion involved in a war of unceriain duration, even the most ardent advocates of a vigorous public works policy presumably will be prepared to admit that an end must be made for the time being of the expenditure of public money on anything else than objects of immediate and urgent necessity. In its wide ramifications, the public works programme embodies undertakings ranging all the way from mere amenities to essential tasks ol maintenance. In the circumstances that have now arisen, the programme evidently must be revised. Its various items of course must be considered and dealt with on lheii imlit idual merits, but that the programme as a whole can be and must be curtailed drastically is nol, it may be hoped, in question. Xo doubt the Public Works Statement presented yesterday was compiled and completed before the outbreak of war. It certainly must now be regarded as completely out of place and out of keeping with the national circumstances in which it is presented. Although nearly half the year to which it relates has already expired, it may be supposed that measures are already in' train to cut down much of the expenditure it proposes.