FINANCIAL. DEBATE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1830, 16 August 1913, Page 6

FINANCIAL. DEBATE.

CRITICISM OF BOTH SIDES,

THE NEW & THE OLD.

Mr. J. A..JIANAN (Invercnrgill) said the Budget furnished a crushing reply to tho criticism of tho members of the Government of tho alleged extravagant expenditure of the late Government. Ono would have naturally expected that when they got into power tiiey .would reduce expenditure and keep down borrowing. Did the honourable the Minister for Finance still say, as he had said previously, .during the last thrco or four years, that tho amount of money to bo borrowed annually should be reduced? The Minister's policy was apparently to increase borrowing, and tho Government were made to look very foolish in view of their protests against reckless lx>rrowing and unduly heavy expenditure. Thero was really 110 constructive proposal in the Budget as to what the Government meant to do in tho amendment of tho Arbitration Court. He hold that the lifo tenancy of the President of tho Court should be, abolished. He should bo appointed for five years only, and the position should not be mado a steppine-stono to the Supreme Court Bench.- He did not wish to imp?ach the ability or tho nn■partialitv of .Tudce Sim. but the mere fact that a section of the workers thought ho was biased against them destroyed tho usefulness of the Court. Judge Sim, ho believed, was a very fair and just man and a very able lawyer. Ho maintained, too, that the President of the Court ought to be a man trained in law. He failed to find a good reason for the set-ting-up of a separato Department to. administer the Cook Islands. Multiplicity of Departments added to the cost of administration, and for this reason an effort, had been made some time aso to reduce tho number... Another'new Department that was unnecessary was the Immigration Department, tho work of which could quite well be done by tho Labour Denartment.' Other unnecessary Departments were the Pensions Department and the Electoral Department. He also condemned the setting hp of tho Public Servico Commissioners' Department, tho cost of which could bettor applied to public works. Our Civil Service, staffs were remarkably efficient under Ministerill control, and there/ was' no need for tho now system of control by. Commissioners. He condemned the "shabby treatment" accorded to the people of Southland in-tho matter of public works vote?. Ho also had something to say about the Dreadnought staying in Southland waters for only ono aay. This was

due, ha eaid, to tho "petty," vindictive, mean-spirited action of the Government because tho Dreadnought had been, "given by one pi tho members for Southland, the late Prime Minister." The' ship might ,03 well have stayed around there as gono "loafing about somewhere else," and he declared that instead of staying another day in the south, she had "gono away up north to be used as an advertising medium for the Government of the day." Ho also found fault with tho Prime Minister for, as ho said, having failed to mention, in the course of patriotic celebrations, "tho fact that Sir Joseph Ward was the statesman responsible for tho giving of the Dreadnought?" He accused tho Government of having failed "to redeem the pledges of reformthey had riven. There was no mention of iyival defence policy in the Budget. The Minister had, he ■ said, come back with definite proposals, but-the Cabinet had turned them down. This, he said, was well known. (Ironical laughter from the Government benches.) The House wanted a, lead from the Government in naval policy. Mr. Fisher: And you want a leader. Mr. Hanan's reply to this was a little sermon, in which he urged the Ministers to be dignified, and to behave nicely. Ho said the Government had come in on agood financial wicket, and the prosperous condition of New Zealand was duo to the progressive legislation of past years. ON THE OTHER SIDE. A CRITIC WITH A MEMORY. Mr. C. K. WILSON (Taumaruniii) replied to what he described as the misleading statements of the members of the Opposition, accusing the Government of having increased expenditure unduly. The member for Wairau had said tint the increasa in. expenditure had been double that of any previous year, whereas the fact was that in the year beforo the present Government took office the expenditure increased three per cent., and in the first year of tho M'assey Government the expenditure'increased only one per cent. Mr. M'Callum: I said, the average over a,period of 21 j-ears. (Laughter from, the Treasury benches.) Mr. Wilson: You said a lot of funny things. Mr. M'Callum: I <3id. Mr. Wilson: Tho lion, gentleman may know something about law, though I doubt whether he knows much about that, but Ihoro is . one (thing that oven I can teach him—that bad temper is not sarcasm, and that abuse is not criticism-, Now, when money was to bo spent ho hoped it would bo spent in parts of tho country where there was latent wealth, •and not on works'like tho Hutt lioad, w'here .£'310,000 had been spent to keep one member, in Parliament, •anil nothing else." Complaint had been'made about too much borrowing, but to which items in the loan dicl tli9 Opposition object? Did they object to the borrowing of upwards •of ■£200,000-for advances to settlers?

, -Mr. M'Callum: To-give to your friends, ! Mr. Wilson:-Do yon say that? Mr. M'Callum: Influenced by your party.

Mr. Wilson: Do you 6ay that a nonpoliticar boardi is going to give money to my friends in preference to others? Mr. M'Callum: That's what your party said.

• Mr. Wilson rebuked. Mr. M'Callum for making such a charge against the members of the board. The member for Avon had said that if the Government wanted to givo the freehold to Crown tenants, 1 no support would be given to the proposal by liis party; but when the proposal was actually made a very few, which did not include the member for Avon, dared to vote against it.

Mr. Russell: Will youi sell the endow ments? Ask the Minister for Marine?

.Mr. Fisher: The only proposal of the kind that was ever made came from youx side of tho. House, Mr. Wilson deplored tho attacks made in the House against the large landowners. 'flics® men, he,said, had tome away from the comforts of civilisation to do pioneer -work in a uew< country. Homo had failed, and some had become wealthy. It was not a fact that the workers were ever oppressed by the large landowners. The onJy oppression and demoralisation of the working people was caused by the grotvth of large manufacturing interests. He believed in tho settlement of the land as the best thing for the future of thiscountry. He realised that the time had come when the holdings of these large landowners were needed for settlement, and that they would have to be taken, but ho did not believe in the graduated land tax as a method of bringing about settlement. Land forced on the market by this taxation method was always offered on not very easy terms, with short-torm mortgages, and the poor man could not go on to the land under such conditions.

Mr. Russell: How much money has been spent in your electorate since last year? Mr.. Wilson said that if the Government had spent .£500,01)0 in his electorate alone it would not have' wiped out the sins of the.pi'evious Government in neglecting settlers in that district. He went on to quote recorded cases in* which the hardships of back-blocks -life had driven women to madness and death. Stepsmust betaken to raiso money to give relief, and give it soon, to tho back-blocks settlers. People did not realise what an enormous wealth was lying dormant owing to a lack of tho means of communication. The abominable crime of being a "one-Parliament" membar, which the member for Hutt had accused him of, ho would not attempt to palliate, but ho hoped to learn something ami nSt to coutinuo a blundering bounder in spito ot! 11 years of Parliamentary experience. Mr. Hanan: Ton haven't got that.

Mr. Wilson: No, I haven't got that, and if I can't obtain some rolief in tho deplorablo condition of things that I have been describing, I don't want to como back to this House.

'Mr. Wilson denounced the members on tho other side of tho House who had de-

serted the back-blocks settlers, and now got up and assailed tho Massey Government for "reckless borrowing." If thero was ono question in New Zealand that should bo dealt with by members of tho House on non-party lines, it was tho problem of back-blocks development. In tho interests of the Dominion and of the individual members of its population, this problem should be dealt with on its merits, and in a fair and impartial way. Mr. M'Callum said that (he honour able member for Taumarunm had misrepresented him in accusing him of misquoting figures. What 110 had snid was that tho average additional expenditure of tho Liberal party during its 21 years . in office was -.£830,000, whereas the average additional expenditure of • the present Government (talcing the actual additional expenditure for last year and tho estimated additional expenditure for next year) was .£700,000. Mr. Wilson said that he had noted Mr. M'Callum as sayms that expenditure under tho present Government had _ increased twice as much as in previous years.