PARLIAMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 27 June 1891, Page 2

PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF REPBESENTATIVES.

TUESDAY, JUNE 28,

The Hon the Speaker took the chair at 2.80 p.m. Mr Fergus .moved the adjourn-* ment of the House to enable him to show how, the Public Works Department was suffering for want of an engineer in chief.

The Minister replied so warmly -that Mr Duthie rose and said there Was no, occasion for the Minister for Public Works to get into such a 1 8tjite of excitement. As a matter of fact Mr O'Connor did not require £1200 a year, but only an assurance of a permanent appointment at his -then salary. . -; ;, After other members had spoken Mi* Bryce pointed out that the Minister had said that the officials, being in 'fen assured position, were now happy, and ye£ he then said he saw his way to further reduction. It: was to point out that inconsistency that he had spol>en. , r Jhe Minister of Public Works said he spoke of the contentment of absolutely necessary officer^, but ; there were others which, perhaps could be dispensed with.

Further members having had their say the motion lapsed.

, The Premier, replying to Mr McGuire, said the money from the •tax.on the. totalisator would be applied indirectly through the Consolidated Fund to charitable aid, but whether it could be applied directly was a' different matter; The Minister for Education , replying to Mr Wilson, said tKe revised education ;> syllabus wpuld £ive greater prominence to instruction in agriculture, but no ttxt book's : of mining had been introduced. \

, .Some new bills were read a first| time. • ' ■•■■• q

TfJE ' FINANCIAL DEBATE '

was resumed at the evening Bitting; and Mr Scobie McKenzie who spoke for an hour and a half, made, according to the N. Z. Time* "decidedly the most amusing and hardest hitting speech of the debate." He said : - Whtyt motive was there for a change in the finance ? The past Government had inherited a deficit of £528,000, and £128,000 had been paid off and the estimated surplus for the coming year was £257,000 enabling another £100,000 to be paid off. The property tax had been a tax upon improvement and industry and had resulted 'in an exodus from New Zealand, but the real charge against it had been made by the 'Minister for Public Works at Invercajgill, who said .that under it the iiaore you improved tKe more you ; paid, and it lrad been a. curse to the country. If that was so why. should the Government say that therefore they proposed to put a larger tax upon improvements ? He agreed that the industrial classes were heavily burdened, and was it not therefore remarkable that a Government set up ,to represent labour actually furnished them with a table showing how heavily they were burdened, and yet took not a penny off the Customs; which was the only way in which .they .could be relieved? The new finance was intended to rectify inequalities, but no Minister had yet explained why such a difference had been made in the tax to be paid by th,e traders and the' professional man in the Colony, the' former paying on an average four times as much as the lattdif; : ' Fraud was hot ' easy under the property tax, but under the income tax it was particularly easy, and. the members who/had formerly been -whipped jyifch. cords would when "tjU^.oame i into- . 'c-perjCtion be whipped with scorpions. (Opposition obeerj:) was to/be. no bursting upjof estates atal', iiwas a gigan'tio siairi,- The policy of the-Govern-rne^wa^ a*( astute* .way of getting money | TKe whole of the 'evils of Property tax were retained, plus a great many" more vexatious evils than they had before. Where was the 1 absented tax. that they had heard was -to be the salvation of the coun-4ry-£CjThey, we&'v, instead placing ifDS^nteestfh-the lame- fobtihg^as the colonists. He adjured the Government t6 take back their policy, and recast the whole thing, and come back with something honest in its stead — with an honest policy they would: all approve^' stripped of tfle mask they had been wearing. JJet them cease to : endeavour to deceive the 1 Colony, and help the industrial classes in the only way psssible, viz, by improving the Colony in which the lived, by the reduction of taxation all round, so as to relieve the burdens of the whole community. Messrs- launders, Buckland md Smji^httving spoken • -

Mr Harkness^movedi th& -adjourn%&^i $ $ie^ * Was • agrseed to, the House rising at 12 o'clock. ,;_