WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 October 1931, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE REVISED BUDGET. MINISTER OF FINANCE DARES (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, October 8. Though the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, the Minister of Finance in the newly constituted Coalition Government, had had less than a fortnight in winch to familiarize himself with the intricacies of the finances of the Dominion he was able last night to pre sent to Parliament and the public at large an ouline of their obligations which could he neither overlooked nor ignored. The Prime Minister, the Right Hon. G. W. Forbes, his immediate predecessor in the custody of the Treasury, had bequeathed to ; m a deficiency of some £6,850,000 and to this huge sum a further amount ol just upon £1,600,000 had to be added. None but a bold man, patriotic as well as courageous, would have accepted such a task. Mr Stewart, however, had shown his metal before. In his first speech in the House, indeed, on the earliest opportunity that came his way after the outbreak of the Great War, he appealed to his fellow members to set party strife aside and to give their whole efforts to the needs of the Empire. And his appeal bore fruit

HIS REPARATION. Mr Stewart, having as broad a view of politics as he lias of parties, it is interesting to look back upon his early life and career and understand some thing of the making of the man Born in Dunedin of. 1878, a son of the Hon. William Downie Stewart —four times returned to the House of Representatives by a Dunedin constituency and then apointed for life, to the Legislature Council—the younger William Downie tok a law degree at the Otago University and then travelled through Siberia and China at the, time ol the Japnnese-Russian war; practised his profession in Dunedin ; contested unsuccessfully the Dunedin South seat in the House of Representatives; read and wrote profusely ; sat in the Dunedin City Council, 1906-12; Mayor 191314; elected to House of Representatives in 1914 and served during the war with the Otago Regiment until invalided home. He was returned to the House in 1919, 1922, 1925, and 1928, obtaining ministerial rank in 1920. Between times he has applied himself to the solution of many problems and is numbered among the best informed members of the . House. SIXTY-THREE YEARS AGO.

In view of the financial problems that are confronting the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance at the present time it will not he opportune to recall the experiences of some of their predecessors in the administration of the affairs of the country. In 1868 Sir John Hall, then a member of the second Stafford Ministry, waning to its fall, took charge of the Treasury during the absence of his chief and at the end of the financial year found himself with a deficit of £103,293. His chief had estimated the consolidated revenue for the year to amount to £1,084,000 and it had reached only £980,707. The heavens it would seem, were about to fall. “I need hardly tell the Committee,” Sir John forthwith told it, “that I have to speak of financial depression ; that for the first time in the history of this colonly is revenue exihibits a fallingoff, correspondingly, but too truly, with the general commercial depression which we know to exist throughout the colony.’ The ultimate result of this catastrophe, of course, was the fall of the Stafford Government and the advent of Sir William I'ox and Sir Julius Vogel. AND AFTER. The New Ministry % came into office in June 1869 and endured until September 1872, Sir William Fox being Premier, Sir Julius Vogel Colonial Treasurer and other prominent figure, in its early constitution being Sir Donold McKean, long prominent in the affairs of the colony as Native Minister; Sir Francis Dillon Bell and Mr Issue Earl Featherstpn, Sir Julius Vogel, it is scarcely necessary to say, was an active figure in a somewhat ananiolous combination.. Its end came with Cue presentation of a budget which showed a deficit of £116,136 Sir Julius failed to excuse. “1 refuse to believe,” he declared in the last paragraph of his appeal, “that personal animosities or purely local considerations are to be elevated to the dignity of party questions, and if such is to he attemtpted the warning may not he <)■ t of season, that the interests 1 at stake are far too important for the country to sanction them being converted into the playthings of imaginary parties.” And in good time the daring Treasurer saved the situation, by. .jettisoning his Prime Minister and ‘taking the leadership himself.

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