The Dominion. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1914. CRITICISM AND FACTS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2308, 16 November 1914, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1914. CRITICISM AND FACTS

In their efforts to discredit 1 the financial administration of the Government, Opposition critics have laid great stress upon the ratio of revenue a+ud expenditure during the two complete financial, years for which the Government has been in office. Expenditure during. this period has admittedly increased more rapidly .than revenue, _ and _ seizing uporj this faot the critics in question. have asserted'that the Government has been guilty of extravagance and that under its" control the finances of the country are going to the bad. A mere general allegation of this character carries no weight, and in order to arrive at a reliablo conclusion on the subject, it is necessary to examine the position in some detail and to look at the whole of the facts.This the Wardist critics have shown themselves very unwilling to do. They have avoided any appeal to the details of the financial administration of the past two years for the good and-sufficient reason that these details largely disprove the charge levelled aga,inst_the Government.' Anyone ■ who examines the position on its merits, instead of merely attempting to make out a partisan case, will find that while increases in the public expenditure were authorised. ' during the two years under review, the detail items were nearly all approved, tacitly or otherwise, by the very men who'now.seek to found'upon tns aggregate increase a charge of incompetence on tho < part of the 'Government. • In addition to that, causes which no prudence or' foresight in administration could possibly have ayerted have operated to temporarily depress the revenue. ' It is also a factor of considerable importance tha,t the Government, in the interests of. sound finance, has diverted some of the annual receipts which were treated by its predecessors as revenue 1 into the capital funds of the State, and has imposed some necessary additional charges upon revenue which these same predecessors neglected and ignored. , Reference to the official records will fully bear out , these statements. In the first place it is true that during the two years 1912-13 and 1913-14 the aggregate increase in expenditure exceeded the increase in revenue for

the same period. But in order to arrive at _a_ correct understanding of the position it is necessary to look at tne principal items of increased expenditure, which the Wardists so carefully ignore. On a number of occasions Opposition critics have bean invited to indicate the items in the following list to which they take exception, but so far they have not responded to the invitation:— Additional . each. year. £ Teachers' "Superannuation Bund... 10,000 Public Service Superannuation Fund 25,000 Railway Superannuation Fund. 25,000 Increased pay to Civil Servants under the Public Service Commisioners— ' 1912-13 49,500 1913-14 51,G00 Increases, Post and Telegraph— 1912-13 42,500 1913-11 43,000 Increases, police (1914) 18,000 Inoreases, 6chool teachers (1913) ... 29,000 Increases, railway servants 94,564 Increase per annum. Military pensions' i .44,428 Old age pensions to women at GO years 70,000 Old age pensions, further amend-

mentg 10,000 Widows' ponsiona 5,000 Concessions wider Customs Act ... 30,000 Sinking funds for public buildings 10,000 Taking these items, in the aggregate, an additional annual outlay of approximately £463,000 is accounted for, much of which had to be faced in 1912-13 and noarly all of it in 1913-14. Probably no Opposition critic, however, would be bold enough to suggest that any single item in the list supports the charge of imprudence or extravagance on the part of the Government. The payments into the various superannuation funds woro necessary to make them actuarially sound and responsibility for the fact certainly cannot be-saddlcd upon the Government, but must rest with the Administration which, left the funds in such a condition as to require additional librenpftboning, No attempt ever been mack Jul the Qdbqsu

'tion critics to show that tho 1 increases to Civil Servants, railwaymen, police, and school teachers were in any way excessive or involved more than bare justico to the public servants concerned. On the contrary, it has beon contended at times that some of the increases are inadequate, in establishing military pensions and hugely increasing the payments under, the existing pensions law the Government necessarily incurred largo increases of expenditure, but in doing so it had the cordial support of a great majority of the members of the House of Representatives', including the critics who now accuse it of extravagance. In fact, apart from their ever-present desire to concoct a plausible charge against the Government, the reluctance of the Wardists to refer to the details of the Government's financial administration is to a great extent explained by their unwilling recognition of the fact that these details furnish a crushing refutation of , the ■ oftrepeated taunt that the Reform Party is wedded to the interests of. the big landholders and moneyed men of the. oommunity, and has no desvre to promote the welfare of the general body of citizens. A Government so inclined would certainly not have increased the pay of public servants and teachers, as has been done by the present Administration, nor would it have extended and liberalised the benefits of the State pensions system in a way which the socalled Liberals never-.contemplated. On the other hand, _critics of the Government's financial administrar tion must face the fact that in condemning the increase in expenditure ? uri ng the past two years they are m effect condemning liberal benefits granted to the people at large. Apart from the increased. expenditure for which it ■ has been responsible, the Government has effected a number of financial reforms which have an important bearing'on the matter under discussion. Under the Continuous Ministry, -for instance, the receipts from sales of Crown land, though resulting from the sale bf a .capital asset, were treated as current income, and went to swell 'the annual revenue surpluses. The practice has now been discontinued, and a sum of £81,060, derived from the sale of. land last year, was paid into a- capital account instead of being treated as revenue and embodied 'in the surplus," Under the Continuous Ministry, ajjain, public buildings paid for out oi borrowed money wero reerected, if they happened to be de-, stroyed by fire, out of more borrowed money. Abandoning this unbusinesslike procedure, the Government has set aside each year out of revenue a sum of £10,000 as a sinking fund for public buildings. While the' Wardists. have almost invariably ignored the essential facts here set forth in shaping their criticism of the Government s financial administration, they have almost as carefully avoided any mention of the facts that the smallpox epidemic cost the country £23,701, and the strike of last year about '£100,000, while losses of revenue due to both causes totalled something like £178,000. Taking everything into account, it must be perfectly plain to anyone who reviews the position ■without prejudice that the Wardists, in their efforts to manufacture a case against the, Government, have succeeded only in demonstrating their own lack of fairness and ability as critics. They have condemned an increase in expenditure which for the most part they have approved, willingly or otherwise, in its detail items, and they have asked the public to believe that tho public accounts should show as good a balance in years when heavy additional charges are necessarily made upon tho resources of the State as in years of unbroken prosperity. - Criticism of this kind is unworthy of tho name. '.