The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1884. The Financial Statement.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1287, 23 June 1884, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1884. The Financial Statement.

A Financial Statement that deals only 1 with past transactions and says nothing of the future is necessarily wanting in J the chief element of interest, and I Major Atkinson consequently labored j under considerable disadvantage on J Friday last when he placed his views J before the House. The defeat ot the 1 Ministry and the subsequent granting of a dissolution left the Premier no other course but to ask for sufficient Supplies to carry on the work of Go-' v ernment till the new Parliament is chosen. Hence the Statement this year is little more than an enunciation of the causes of the present depression from the Ministerial point of view, and an apology for the deficit in the estimates. After the many speeches delivered on these topics daring the latter part of the recess, it would perhaps be scarcely reasonable to expect anything new on these matters, and what was . said was little more than a re-iteration of an ofttold tale. Whether the fall in the prices of wool and grain, our staple products, and the over-importation of stocks by merchants in the previous year, are the main causes of the depression, it is not necessary to discuss at this late hour. Nearly every member of the House has diagnosed the state of the colony, and we have been well nigh nauseated with the subject, while nobody has suggested a remedy. As affairs now stand, it was no part of Major Atkinson’s duty to say how the Government proposed to set things straight, but he gave us to understand that had the Ministry not been defeated at the outset of the session the deficit would have been met without having recourse to further taxation. As to how this was to be done we are left in complete ignorance, except that we were told in general terms that reform in the Civil Service in the direction of 'economy and a cheaper system of hospital and charitable aid were among the principal items of the programme. That part of the Statement, in fact, which referred to the future took somewhat the form of an address to the colony, and will no doubt carry weight in the coming elections. What the Premier said in effect was, that if the present Government had in any way been the cause of the depression they had a full and sufficient remedy, if the opportunity were given to disclose it. If retrenchment is made one of the points of policy in the general election, as it can hardly fail to be, it is manifest that the Opposition candidates will be placed in a more difficult position than those who support a return to power of the existing Ministry. That the utterances of Major Atkinson on this point were vague cannot be denied, but that was not his fault, as there was no good reason why his financial proposals should be disclosed after it was shown that the party he led could not command a majority in the House. Had the want-of-confidence motion been postponed until the Financial Statement had been brought down, an opportunity would have been offered to the Opposition for traversing the economical policy of the Government, whereas now there is nothing tangible to place before the people at the forthcoming general election. The eagerness displayed to turn out those in pqwer showed a decided want of tact, and the attempt which was made subsequently to get the Governor to alter his decision regarding the dissolution was proof that Sir George Grey and Mr Montgomery realised that they had committed an error in pushing affairs to an issue so soon.