The Hokitika Guardian WEDNESDAY, NOV. 22nd., 1022. FRENZIED FINANCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 November 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian WEDNESDAY, NOV. 22nd., 1022. FRENZIED FINANCE.

In tbe course of one of the lervid speeches he delivered during his flying vi-jit to a number of North Island electorates last week, the Prime Alinister cliallenged his political opponents to point to a single instance in which he or his colleagues had misappropriated a penny of public money. So far ns can bo gathered from the newspaper reports of the remarks this extraordinary outburst was apropos of nothing at all. No one had accused All' Alassev of robbing the till, or his colleagues of dipping their shovels into the petty cash. Their personal honesty never has been called in question and one may lie sure, never "ill be. The Prime Minister, himself knows perlectly well that this is the case, and that when he protests his personal integrity he simply is attempting to evade his political responsibility. It is not necessary to go back to the speech he delivered in Wellington Town Hall in 1911 to find promises that have been falsified all through his long term of office. lii that speech he pleaded for n scat on the Treasury benches in order that ho might “institute a thorough investigation into the Dominion’s finances with a view to keeping borrowing within reasonable hounds and preventing wasteful expenditure”. His exact words are quoted as they were at once his indictment of the Liberal Government and his pledge to the electors. Next year when ho took office on the strength of this solemn pledge the net public debt stood at £82.193,310. At the end of his first year of office the net debt had risen to £87,457,121, at the end of his second year to £91,680.885 and at the end of his third year to 606,614,15-7. Then came the war with its need for extraordinary expenditure and the screen it provided for Reform waste and extravagance.

But all this is a twice told tale. It is not an impeachment of flip Prime Al mister's personal integrity, hut a damning proof of the falsity of his political promises. During the three years the borrowing he would have kept within reasonable hounds increased by £14.451,145, and the expenditure he would have lessened by £2,039,405. So much for the period before the war. Four months after the conclusion of peace, tile public debt stood, roughly at £170,000,000 mid the deluded taxpades imagined that, at last, they were well over the worst of their troubles. But with the National Cabinet dissolved and with a big majority at his hack in the newly elected Parliament, Air Massey resumed his playful pursuit of keeping borrowing within reasonable bounds, and now has the sum-total of the public debt raised to some £219,000,000. The Prime Minister lias authority to raise another £5,01X1,000 and hus announced liis intention to exercise this authority in March next, when he lias been advised by the gentlemen who control the London money market, the time will he favourable for such an operation. Afcanwliile lie told the House just before the prorogation, he lias picked up a stray million at a rate of interest that would astonish the country were lie at liberty to discioso the information. Our own astonishment is that the country tolerates a system of frenzied finance that builds up the public debt at the rate of ten or twelve millions a year and expects a population of little more than half a million adults to struggle back to prosperity under such a staggering load.