Financial Statement Debate

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 70, 1 December 1887, Page 3

Financial Statement Debate

MR MAGARTHUR'S SPEECH. The following is a summary of Mr Hacarthur's speech, delivered in the House -on November 18 z — I listened with great pleasure and attention to the speech delivered by the .honourable member for (Jhristchurch North {Sir Julius Vogei). I say " with great pleasure," for this reason ; that it 4a evident to me that that honorable gentleman has been very much misrepresented in the past throughout the couu* try. That honourable gentleman has always seemed to desire borrowing, and has always been considered rather ex* trava-anl in spending— in fact, he baa .always been inclined to do what, in private life, is known as "going the pace •" •but, from the tone of his address the other night, it is evident that he has been misrepresented. The whole scope of his speech showed him to be a man essentially economical and opposed to borrow* ing, .Now, this is a matter which requires -hutae explanation, and I may say I have puzzled myself very much to ascertain iow it. is that 'he is so virtuous when he is in opposition, and yet, when in office, gained so great a reputation for extrava* £anoe. I think it must be evident that the honourable gentleman, when in office, ' -was overborne by pressure from his colleagues. He, being of a weak and impressionable nature, must have been overborne and led away, for his naturally -economical proclmties would never have allowed him, if left to himself, to makethe proposals which he did make when ia power. We heard a good deal in 1884 •about " Yogel with the brake on," and the Premier in the late Government was supposed to be the "brake ;" but 1 think it i» now quite evident that what we did have was *' Vogei with the blinkers on," «nd that he was led by some of bis col* leagues into a course of extravagance which he would never have followed of hi* own Emotion. There is another matter in which the honourable gentleman seems to have been misrepresented. He lias been called a "democratic Tory." That is the term which his late colleague, the. ex- Minister of Lands, applied to him. 1 do not know what kind of a politician a democratic Tory is, but I suppose that, as his late colleague, who knows him so well, has applied the term, it is applied •correctly. And the honourable member for St. Albans also tells us, in musically rhythmical tones, after dwelling upon a number of democratic things that the honourable member for Christchurch JNortn has done, tbat a man who had proved himself a Democrat in so many ways was Democrat enough for him — a Democrat of the Democrats, representing the democratic side of a democratic eon» stuueucy. It appears peculiar to me (hat the honourable gentleman should Lave been so greatly misrepresented on these two points throughout the country. We know that when he came into office in 1884 it was supposed that he c&.me here rather as the representative of what I may call the *• propertied classes." — bank*, companies, and other institutions which do not exactly represent the wishes of the democratic side of the population -of the colony. He had a few tilings on Laud such as the district mil ways and -other matters of that kind, an. t almost liis very first action on taking office was to reduce the property-tax by one-half, action which could scarcely be called -druiocratic. JSo doubi there were many •changes m 1885*80, and they culminated last session Ojr the honourable member proposing a graduated property -tax, a policy which the honorable- member for ist. Albans -described as democratic, and which, 1 think, most people will agree was quite foreign to the supposed temiencie* of the honourable member for Christchurch Worth. .Referring more particularly to the honourable gentleman's speech, I find that he told the House that he had saved to the colony during his term of office something like £750,000 of taxation by his operation on the Mnkjng Fund. But I say. that his operation «n the Sinking Fund in 1884 prevented us from facing three years ago the d.ffi--culty that we have to face now. If the Government then had not been able to get hold of that £250.000 per annum and put it mto the revenue we should have been brought face to face with the ques tion of retrenchment long ago, and should have had to deal with the .question under far More favorable circumstances than are now surrounding us. But what was the use of the operation ? He borrowed a sum equivalent to the amount formerly paid on account of the colonial debt, and, after borrowing this cum, spent it. That is not a reduction of the taxation, and there was no reduction of ■he taxation except that the property tax was, as 1 have said, reduced by one«half, and that was a reduction altogether in the interest of the propertied classes— the 1 classes to which, as a Tory-Democrat, this honourable gentleman was supposed to be opposed, like his friend the honourable member for St. Albans. There was a great deal covered by the speech of the honorable gentleman, arid I have to hurry over a great many of the points on which I might lay more stress ; but I should like to point out that the oxTreasnrer's criticisms of the Budget proposals of the Government are altogether fallacious. First of all he pointed out that the Government proposed — but let jne read his words :— "Let me show . how the honourable gentleman deals with this year's expendi- j ture. fn doing so X will omit the Land 1 und Account, for it iuvolves questions .of special policy. Our estimates, exclusive ot Land Fund expenditure, were £4,088.804: he adds to them, for services insufficiently provided, £75,908 ; he then deducts from them on our behalf or his — it is difficult to say which— £46,3l7 ; then he takes off reductions on, his own account amounting to £56,000, and brings out the result of £4,062,395, or £26,409 less than our original estimates" That would make it appear that all the present Government had done by the retrenchment policy wns to reduce the expenditure by L 26,000 ns compared with the original estimates of the Stoat- Vogel . Irovernment ; but he forgets altogether to take into account the supplementary estimates, amounting to L 75.000. which, if added to the amount of savings, would make jt over LIOO.OOO as between him and the present Government. Then he goes on to say, "I will convince h mour« able members that we would have larger savings this "year." There is a clev«r juggle here which is likely to impose not anly on new members, but upon old members, unless they have taken the trouble to look into the figures pretty closely, so as to estimate the exact state of the ca»«.. (To be continued, j