The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1879.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5817, 20 November 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1879.

Mr. Macandrew and Sir G. Grey hava each a grievance. Mr. Mac an brew’s is that the Colonial Treasurer accuses him of having entered into contracts to an enormous amount without the authority of Parliament. This statement is not strictly accurate ; what Major Atkinson really said, on October 14th, was as follows ;—“ I find, upon inquiry, “that “ we have entered into engagements from “ which there is no escape whatever, as I “ am informed, for which we must find “ £733,553 by the 31st of December “ next, and that there are further “ engagements upon which we shall have “ to pay £921,818 more by the 30th of “ next June. In other words, by the “ 30th of June, upon works and services “to which we are already committed, “ without including any new works or “ contracts or the cost of raising the loan, “hut including contingent defence, we “ shall have spent £2,220,104 of the new “ five-million loan.” He also added that there wore further prospective engagements to meet after June 30th next, which, if they were carried on tin full, would entail a further expenditure of £1,085,000. In round numbers there were therefore prospective liabilities amounting to £3,300,000, of which £504,000 had been expended in anticipation of the loan. It is not to be supposed that all the prospective liabilities are absolutely binding. For instance, there is a sum of £1,120,000 set down for the purchase of native fands, some of which purchases will probably be abandoned. Then there is a sum of £845,000 pledged to railways, and a further £224,000 estimated as required for open lines. It is, we assume, quite possible to extend the payment on these works over a much longer period than was originally intended. Without going further into figures it is evident that means must be found by which the expenditure for the year of the £2,190,000 which we have indicated will be cut down very far below the original estimates.

The Colonial Treasurer, finding himself on coming into olfioe, hampered with such a legacy of troubles, left him bv his predecessor, might well be excused for using strong terms of condemnation when commenting upon the extravagance of the late Government. But Major Atkinson has avoided all recriminations. We have looked carefully through the whole'of the Financial Statement in order to discover what it was that Mr. Macandbew had to complain of. The only words used by Major Atkinson ■ conveying any censure which we can discover, are as follows “ When we remember “ that the Public Works scheme of 1878 “ was to take five years to complete, that “ the expenditure from* loan was only to “ be at the rate of some £900,000 a year, “and that by a special provision of the “ Loan Act, 1879, no money raised, under “ it was to be spent without appropna- “ tion' of Parliament, we shall, I fear, “ have come to the conclusion that Par-

“ linment has not been treated with “ frankness in this matter, and that Us “ authority has been disregarded.” Surely this is letting down the ex-Minister of Public Works very easy. It is doubtless sound policy to endeavor to conciliate former opponents at a time of serious difficulty such as that which the colony now has to face. We fail to see that Mr. Macandrew has any just cause of complaint. He has not been accused of letting illegal contracts, but of allowing the department to become entangled in manifold engagements which cannot be dropped except at a considerable sacrifice. The whole tone of the Financial Statement was moderate and conciliatory, and we cannot admit tho justice of Mr. Macandrew’r criticism. When Sir G. Grey got up and began bis attack upon the Statement by saying “ that the present Ministry were placed “ in office by tho Bank of New Zealand “ and the Legislative Council, with the “ one distinct object of abolishing tho “ land tax,” every one laughed. The want of respect shown towards him by members had the effect of drawing forth Sir G. Grey’s “one” speech*in a more violent form than that in which it generally appears. He now declares that the proposed penny in the pound on the value of all landed property is far too small a tax. The half-penny land tax which the late Government imposed upon one single section of the propertied classes in New Zealand was at that time said to mark an era in the history of the colony. Now, the Conservatives have undertaken to revolutionise our finance, and also propose a radical reform in tho incidence of the land tax, so that the owners of unimproved land shall pay Id., instead of id., in the £ for their land, and also another Id. for any improvements which *they may ultimately make. Sir G. Grey describes this alteration as the abolition of the land tax. Property owners cannot understand how a doubling of the land tax can be rightly represented as its abolition, and even Sir G. Grey’s eloquence has failed to convince them that he is right. They are not likely to forgot that Sir G. Grey’s very superior financial policy—as superior as light to darkness—was explained by himself to mean that “ the whole deficit might have “ been met by putting on a tax on land “ in so fair a way that the duty might “ have been much less than the duty in “ Victoria, and between £200,000 and “ £300,000 might easily have been added “to the revenue.” We always thought that the half-penny land tax was only intended as the thin end of the wedge. This statement of Sir G. Grey has removed any doubts which may have existed on that head. The poor old man nearly wept tears of disappointment the other night when the conviction was forced upon him that he would probably never be allowed another opportunity of carrying out his well known policy of “ bursting up the big estates ” by driving home the land tax wedge, which had been so skilfully and judiciously introduced by his master hand. Mr. Macandbbw’s grievance is apparently founded upon a misconception of what Major Atkinson actually said about the engagements entered into in anticipation of the new loan. Sir G. Grey’s grievance is but the creation of a very fertile imagination.