BETTER BY £2,000,000

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2303, 10 November 1914, Page 7

BETTER BY £2,000,000

REFOBBTS RECORD IN REPAIRING THE FINANGEB. 'A saving of £2,000,000 fin a perioi of- twonty-seven months is tho rocori claimed by the Hon., J. Alien for tin Reform Government in: their term o office. Ho made a brief statement oi the subject when asked by a Dominio'i reporter whether he cared to reply t the oft-repeated charge against the Gov ernment that Jiey ,had, failed to kee] their pledges 1 to reduce borrowing.' 1 'Every pledge that wo made to th< electors; as far as I know, either direc* or' indirect, has beto- fulfilled,": ' saw < ..Mr. Allen. "We havo put the finance! '■ "on a basis that is iiicomparably ' mor< 6ound • than they were upon wnen w< . came into office, They have, said, thai we have not fulfilled our 'pledge to re duco borrowing. ; But the facts are in contestable that; during the twentyseven months , we have been in oflhx fcho, total' borrowing < was less than foi . the' previous . twenty-seven ' months when our opponents were in office, anc , that our borrowing for currant expenditure in: that time was less than theirs was for. the period :of twenty-seven months. immediately preceding by close on a million. Perhaps somebody may say: 'That is all. right enough/ but what about the loan moneys left over to you when you came into . office, -and how much would you leave over now of loan moneys and; balances available?' • I have haid that question inquired' intoj and the report has come to me_ to-day. I will give., the full details, <jf jt somc time soon. VSummed up, it comes.t<i this: The balances that we /have available in the . various accounts of Joan moneys' Will,: I. believe, : amount to n quarter of a million more than our predecessors left UB) ; and the loan moneys available amount to over three; . quarters of a million more than was lef c ! to us.' :So that the position is . this: Wo have borrowed a million less 'than they.did, we have a quarter of a million more in balances of the accounts; and wo .have three-quarters of a million more of loan'money available,' so that we are better by over £2,000,000 in twenty-seven months. That is a' re- . cord. ■ .- .■ '• '. "Not only_ that, but I hope to make • a most satisfactory announcement in the course of a. few days about the loan coming due in December, the uni converted portion of. Sir Joseph-Ward's loan, whioh was left as a burden on my . shoulders; I may- go so far as to Bay this, that I have now no fears about it."