The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the west Coast Times. FRIDAY, JUNE IS, 1926. THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1926, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the west Coast Times. FRIDAY, JUNE IS, 1926. THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT

Tub mow Parliament opened formally yesterday and tlie session should.settle down to regular business next week. The Governor’s Speech would be expected to outline the business in the usual general terms, hut the Prime Minister has an unusual opportunity of pushing through Parliament the policy ho is disposed to espouse. He has a Ministry with him which is a record iu numbers, and he has behind him a majority capable of defying any possible opposition < ouibi nation in the House. The most important question for tho country is. finance. As was to be expected, the Speech made reference to the flotation of the loan. Borrowing is a very <ssential part of Reform finance, which the Reform policy forces upon the country. But it must be realised that these annual excursions to the London market are quite overdoing tlio position, and the process is piling up the annual burden on the people. It may Ik* said, and will he said, that- the credit of New iZcaland stands high, and the success of

the loan flotation is a tribute to that high standing, but it has to be remembered that borrowing entails repayments, and interest in the interim, and while borrowing goes on so steadily, the annual financial drain on revenue has to he provided for. There is very little sign of t!« reduction of taxation and while the borrowing habit prevails, there can be very little hope in that direction. At the same time we havie the proposals regarding the non-paying railways under which a million and a-half is to be taken from the ponsilodnted fund to make goqd the

deficit on unrenuinerntivc lines. These railways were built out of borrowed money and when authorised wore regarded as an ultimate asset to repay themselves. That they are not doing so, shows bad planning or bad management, and the cost is thrown back

on the taxpayers. The Customs receipts have been forced up of lake, and this extra, money it ea'n be well understood has to be used to pay for political railways. The taxation on necessaries of life might well he curtailed, and would he reduced under any radical administration which would throw on the land more of the liability than it now carries. And with regard to land, there is the need for a vigorous settlement policy. We read day by day of the surplus labor in the Dominion, men unemployed are walking about the cites and looking for and even demanding work. At the sumo time thousands of people arr.' being brought into New Zealand. The latter is not the immediate cause of the former. The encouragement of immigration is not unwise, though at the moment it is perhaps complicating the position regardng employment. But labor cannot be absorbed nor immigrants he retieived indefinitely without providing permanent avenues for occupation. The best means of all is the-'settlement of the people on the land—and the suspension of that policy. one of the gems of the Liberal policy of the past, is the origin of a good deal of the trouble regarding employment to-day. Our Wellington correspondent in a letter published this week quoted the remarks of one of the speakers at the Sodden Memorial outside Parliament Buildings on the 10th. June. The speaker quoted the late NTr Sihlon’s last public utterances in which be rejoined at the absence of unemployment in New Zealand because of the cardinal features of the Liberal policy with regard to land settlement. Cheap land must again he rendered available for the people, and by settlement proposals draw the surplus population from the centres, and turn them into producers of staple products which will assure always the general prosperity of the country. Here is the opening for Mr Coates to talas a definite move to relieve permanently a difficult, situation. Relief works are not a cure. They are a palliative, and the trouble will recur again. But remove the causes of unemployment by creating legitimate employment, and the present bogey will pass, and a more stable condition of affairs result for New Zealand. There is the opening for the Coates Ministry to do great things for New Zealand. With tla? majority at call all things are possible, and the public will watch the outcome of the session with special interest, now.