RETRENCHMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 888, 6 August 1910, Page 4

RETRENCHMENT.

No. 9 of this session's Hansard has now been_ published, and it contains the official version of the Prime Minister's various speeches on July' 26. In .his main speech, it will be remembered, he said that the savings effected by v his "retrenchment" scheme amounted to £344,203, .and he gave some figures to help out his assertion. Mr. W. Fraseh asked, "Up to what date?" and .was told, "The total shows the retrenchment that has been effected to March 31 last." Mr. Herman pressed for greater exactitude, and the Prime Minister.said: "I say this amount of reduction. has been effected from the time I announced- that the retrenchment'would take place until the end of the last financial year" ; and then, in reply to Mr. Fraser, he fixed the initial date—"the time I announced that the retrenchment would take place"—by saying: "I have given the amount of the reduction during the retrenchment period, the intention to carry out which was announced by mo on behalf of the Government in my speech at the Upper Hutt on the 2nd April, 1909." That is to say, tho saving of £344,203 was stated to have been made between April 2, 1909, and March 31, 1910. This is tho financial yeir 190910 all but one day. Yet in the same speech—in which he scolded Messrs. Herdiian and Eraser for 'wanting exact idates—Sir Joseph said the period in which the "saving of £344,203 was made was "for a period of about eighteen months."- Exactly how he can make anything but twelve months out of the. interval between April 2, 1909, • and March 31, 1910, we may leave him to explain. In the meantime these are' the savingsthat he claims to have made, set out in the table as he gave it:— £ State Fire 1,031 Marine 9,988 Post and Telegraph 9,973 01(1 Age Pensions 5,744 Agriculture, Commerce, and - Tourists 34,995 Kailways 176,000 Labour 1,578 Natiro 4,000 Public Works 25,845 Mines 2,193 Defence 665 Hospitals and Charitable AH 14,777 Advances Office .; 802 Audit 1,597 Lands 6,590 Land and Income Tax 3,484 Education - 44,961 Total £344,203 The Budget does not show the expenditure under the following of tho above heads: State Fire, Old Age Pensions, Hospitals, Advances, Audit, or Land and Income Tax. But it does give the expenditure under the other headings, and the expenditure in 1908-9. A reference to the Budget will show that the Post and Telegraph Department's expenditure did not show a saving of £9973, but an increase of £41,226 (from £814,636, to £855,862). The Working Railways Department did not show a saving of £176,000, but an. increase of £47,881 (from £2,120,308_ to £2,168,189). So also the Education Department cost £14,712 more, and not, as the Prime Minister's table shows, £44,961 less. We need not go through the whole'list. To do him justice, Sir Joseph understated some of the smaller savings made. But- the broad fact remains that the total annual appropriations, an shown earlier in

the year by Sir Joseph Ward himself, dccrcased from April- 1,- 1909, to March 31, 1910, by only £98,970, and not by £344,203. Nor can a reduction of expenditure of £344,203 be shown over the whole period from the time retrenchment started to date—that is sixteen months. A man who this year spent £300 of his income on new extravagances _ could show a saving of £100 by giving up £400 worth of old extravagances. But he could hardly persuade his banker that he was £400 to the good over all. Yet that is the Prime Minister's _ attitude. Because _he saves is. with one hand he claims that you must not count against him the 9d. he wastes with the other.