The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2076, 10 May 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1907.

Commenting upon the condensed telegraphic report of the speocli ol the Acting-Premier a few days ago we drew attention to the absence of any mention of a reduction of Customs duties upon the necessaries of life; but with a fuller report now before us we find that there was no such omission, and that onco more the promise is repeated that the workers will be given a free breakfast table. True, the promise is not made in very definite language, for Mr. Hall-Jones does not appear to have said anything so definite as “the Government will do it.” All that he lias committed himself and his colleagues to is that the question of reductions in the Customs tariff would come before Parliament in a few months, and that the Government wanted to do still more in the way of reductions “in order to give the workers a free breakfast table.” No excuse was offered; no explanation given why this very necessary thing had not been attended to long ago, and whenever it does come about now it may fairly bo looked upon as one of tlioso things that might have been done, but was delayed as long as possible by the Government itself. Had the Government been at all sincere in the matter the workers of the colony would have had a free breakfast table many years ago, for the only possiblo excuse for the imposition of Customs duties upon the necessaries of life is the necessities of the Colonial Exchequer, and who can say that those necessities existed for the past eight years at any rate Avhen each year of the series showed increasing snrplusses above half a million. Had the annual balance-sheet shown smaller surplus balances than the amounts collected on those articles of daily consumption upon which the worker largely sustains life it would not have been sound finance to have reduced them; but as these duties merely wont to swell the annual surplus, already too large, the imposition of them year by year has been nothing short of injustice to the class of men for whom the Government profess to entertain a special care. Dealing with future legislation the Minister said that this and the Land question would form the bulk of the work of next session, and that statement corroborates the view we took of the matter when wo said that the Government policy consisted of those two items alone. There need be no thought of opposition to the reduction proposals, for we believe that had the Opposition been in power those reductions would have been given effect to long ago, so that the only fight that may be expected will take place on the Land Bill unless in the meantime (and it is not unlikely) it may set its sails according to the political wind and steer a course for the smoothest water. Naturally, during the course of the speech, the Leader of the Opposition came in for a great deal of chaff and not a little misrepresentation from the Minister, who accused his opponent of now backing down on the graduated land tax proposals; but’ such accusations, even if true, come with a very bad grace from the men who have backed clown upon their own land proposals after having made the boast that they would stand or fall by their Land Bill. As far as the report goes Mr. Hall-Jones quoted nothing in support of'his assertion that the Opposition loader had hacked down on anything, nor have wc been able to gather anything from his* speeches that would warrant any such conclusion. He was, however, frank enough to say that “if the country got an increased graduated land tax they would be able to thank the Opposition for it,” and it is jileasing to note that the Opposition has at last got credit for something in the way of forcing on 'the Government the passing of Liberal legislation. In the matter of Native land administration and policy, the Minister broadly hints that their past efforts have beeen failures, and he now hopefully looks forward to the results of the Native Lands Commission to do ill a few months what the Government and its predecessors of the samo kidney have failed to accomplish in tlicir fourteen or fifteen years of office. Mr. Hall-Jones of course did not mean to put the matter in that way; but that is exactly what his language meant if it meant anything at all. The speech was largely padded with local references of an eartickling nature, and with financial puff on the expansion of revenue for which he claimed the credit for his Government; but he might have just as reasonably argued that the Government policy controlled the price of wool and other products in the foreign markets as to say that that policy had anything to do with the increased spending power of the people of tlie colony, and no sane person could contend that that is so. It ought to be superflous to i;emind the honorable gentleman that the colony is prosperous because its lands are fertile and it's population industrious, and because its products exported to other lands have for a long time been bringing to the producers remunerative prices over which the Government can exercise no control.