SECRET FINANCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1377, 1 March 1912, Page 4

SECRET FINANCE.

It is rather a lucky thing that the new members of the House of Reprt>sentatives—practically all of whom were elected to destroy "Liberalism" —were yesterday enabled by - tin Prime Minister himself to realise how soundly based is that distrust of "Liberalism's" secret and shifty finance which they share with the public and with the newspapers who have been fighting for frankness and honesty. The Prime Minister yesterday brought down as a Parliamentary paper a letter from the High Commissioner respecting the flotation of a loan of £1,850,000, au thorised imdcr Acts of four and three years ago, and called in. the Paper the "£1,850,000 loan of 1909." Like the Paper respecting the £5,000,000 loan, this latest document is misleading and imperfect. It docs not give Parliament or the public that clear view of what actually took place which it is manifestly necessary that Parliament and the public should have. For the best part of the afternoon the Prime Minister was busily engaged in evading the questions put to him from the front Opposition benches, and he cannot but have succeeded in persuading the whole House, and especially the new members, that all the facts of the , loan have not been disclosed.

What we wish to draw attention to here—and this, more than anything else, must have impressed the new members—is the fact that this document, if the Government had been honest, would have been presented to Parliament in the session of 1910. Tho loan was authorised in 1909, and the last details of cleaning-up in the flotation were completed on September 15, 1910. The High Commissioner sent his letter off next day. Now, where has that letter been all this time? Why Ins it never been produced 1 These questions were pressed by Mr. Fisher yesterday; and what was the answer 1 The utterly ridiculous one that the Prime Minister had not seen ic. He had not seen a letter of the very highest importance addressed to him by the High Commissioner upon a subject hotly in debate. He endeavoured to create the impression that it was a "departmental matter," and that nothing had happened to recall the loan, or any communications in connection with it, to his mind. He also endeavoured to suggest, as he always does, that he always supplies financial information at the earliest possible moment. And he has claimed throughout his Premiership to exercise a personal supervision, of a minute and altogether unusually magnificent sort, over every detail of every loan. Now, the letter of the High Commissioner, sent off on September 16, 1910 (and now for the first time produced to members), must have reached New Zealand by the end of October, 1910, at the. very latest. During November, 1910, there was a great deal said in the press and in Parliament concerning the flotation of loans, and on November 11 of that year an important debate took place in which the Prime Minister opposed the very reasonable requests of thg Opposition for information, and whipped up his then large majority to affirm what really was the principle that loans were Sir Joseph Ward's private business.

Mr. James Allen moved that particulars of the terms of- flotation- of every loan should be laid before Parliament within one year of flotation. This motion was defeated. Mr. Herdjian then moved that the paiticulars should be supplied within two years. This was also defeated. The Prime Minister was very angr>. He treated the motions (Hansard, vol. 153, page 559) as an insult ui himself; and he sought to create the impression that he always gave full information at the earliest possible moment.' And at tho very time he was speaking he had, according to the disclosures made yesterday, in his custody as Minister for Finance a document; that lie has only now condescended to make public. Who can credit—his own loud protestation* about his skill as a financier, his care as an administrator, and his zeal as servant of the democracy, make it impossible for anyone to believe— his lame story uf last night that the charwoman or the messenger or somebody has only now allowed him to see this ancient letter about the £1,850,000 loan._ The new members of the House will probably be puzzled to understand such behaviour. They will realise, however, that secrecy and shiftiness arc the top and bottom of Wardist'finance. They will sec, that the Paper could have been laid before Parliament in November, 1910, and that thn Prime Minister said it could not have been laid before Parliament before November, 1911. They will sec—and the country will see—that the Prime Minister has caught himself out at last in Urn mostobvious way; that with bis safe majority of dummies behind him in thi! past he has, as we liavu always insisted, nnd as the public now believes, grievously bamboozled the nation that has to bear the responsibility for his political misdeeds.