The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1929 THE GREAT ILLUSION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 735, 7 August 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1929 THE GREAT ILLUSION

THERE was a pathetic clearing of the ground in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon for the essential debate, which opened in the evening, on the United Government’s first and (who knows?) not impossibly its last Budget. The Prime Minister was compelled to expose his sustained financial mystery about an imaginary embargo on borrowing money from London. This compulsion was enforced firmly, but with admirably good temper, by Mr. W. Downie Stewart, Minister of Finance in the preceding Government. He had no difficulty at all in dispelling the silly mystery and in revealing, too, that Sir Joseph Ward had no reason whatever for giving’ wings to an implied- indictment of Mr. Stewart as a State finaricier, and had less cause for any kind of political insinuation. The Prime Minister did not apologise in a handsome way, as he should have done without hesitation and with the very fine chivalry that hitherto has marked his great career as an administrator, but climbed down rather clumsily from a misty peak of mystery to the level of explaining that he had come to a mistaken conclusion ! Even though some people might think unkindly that it was a case of one political illusionist exposing another illusionist, it is fair to say without any qualification, that Mr. Stewart was justified in asserting in the plainest of language that Sir Joseph Ward’s statement about the so-called loan embargo was “an extraordinary, contradictory, unfair and a long overdue statement” in explanation of a serious accusation. Considering all the circumstances, including some which call for sympathy, nothing more need be said about an unfortunate mistake. It fell to Mr. Stewart, as a previous authority on Government finance, to open the debate on the provocative Budget. The able member for Dunedin West, whose record as a former Treasurer was by no means free of political blemish, soon made clearer the obvious fact that the United Government’s Budget, instead of being a masterly display of inspired statesmanship, is a lamentable failure in relation to the Government’s high-pitched promises to extricate the Dominion from all its economic and financial difficulties, and thus prove, as Mr. Stallworthy might say, that the return of the United Party to administrative power was a Heaven-sent gift to this country. Since the Government had made a great deal of the deficit bequeathed to it by the Reform Administration, Mr. Stewart demonstrated clearly that the thin legacy had been a godsend to the Ward Ministry. In other words, the deficit had served the United Administration as an explanation of its failure to carry out its promises. Several political critics have complained that repeated reference in this column to that outstanding failure of the new Government has been too harsh and violent, and lacking in sympathy with a virile young party whose purpose, somewhat symbolically, is to raise a virile young country from the rut of stagnation on to a firm highway leading like an arrow to its mark, straight to wonderful progress and prosperity. What has a kindly-disposed politician, whose criticism is always temperate, and whose instinct naturally must be toward sympathy with other politicians in difficulties, to say about the Budget? Those who may take time and trouble to read Parliamentary reports will see that Mr. Downie Stewart has no doubts at all about the Government’s failure to fulfil its promises. It has failed to reduce taxation; it has failed to reduce the cost of money; also it has failed to reduce the cost of living and to banish unemployment. These and other reductions, in record time, were the principal planks on which the United Party swam in a sea of public anticipation toward and into the haven of political power. It would appear that, in the tidal turnover of electoral enthusiasm, the United Party’s dazzling promises were sunk in deep water or smashed in the surf. They have at any rate disappeared. Instead of reducing all the burdens that made the country restive and discontented during the General Election, the United Government proposes to increase taxation, to raise the cost of living, and to inflate loan expenditure to any sum between £13,000,000 and £15,000,000. The Ward Administration will be lucky if it can retain office for the usual term of Parliament.

A STRATEGIC AMENDMENT

THE introduction of an amendment to the Customs Amendment Bill is a serious matter for the Government. If the amendment is seriously pursued, it may place the Ministry in a delicate and precarious position, with both Reform and Labour allied against it. There may be some in the Reform Party who, having ‘rural interests predominantly at heart, will devote their opposition to the super-tax on farmers. But though these few will he content to leave the fight over the increased primage duty to others, the great majority of the Reform Party seems likely to support Mr. Coates in his amendment. The full extent of the possible sequels may he seen when it is realised that the Labour Party, too, is virtually pledged to oppose the doubling of the primage. There is this much to be said for the Government, that it has apparently advanced these proposals with a full knowledge of the possible consequences. Unless it expected the Labour Party to be gulled by the Prime Minister’s doubtful assurance that the duty could not he passed on, it can hardly have expected Labour to support such an increase in a tax that ultimately and inexorably must reach the wage-earner. The Government may have, balanced this possibility against the chance that Reform would concentrate on the land-tax and leave the primage duties alone. If :it did so, the amendment proposed by Mr. Coates has brought the structure of its expectations tumbling down. On the assumption that Mr. Coates means to prosecute his amendment seriously, the fate of the original Bill appears at once to be in doubt. It passed its first reading without formal opposition, but only after animated discussion, in which the only nonGovernment members to give it their approval were Mr. W. D. Lysnar and Mr. W. J. Poison. Even Mr. J. T. Hogan, a distinct camp-follower of the Government, seemed doubtful in his attitude, and Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, a vigorous Independent, was candid in his hostility. If, to this opposition, is added the full strength of the Labour Party and a number of Reformers, the prospects of the Bill’s survival are remote. It is true that some sort of a compromise may be effected, but as the Government has repeatedly professed its readiness to baek its policy with another appeal to the country, such an arrangement would stamp its claims with insincerity. Neither of the other parties has seemed anxious for another election, but it may be that the forbearance with which they entered upon the session will collapse under their increasing irritation. Whatever happens, it seems certain that the Customs Amendment Act will provide some sort of a test.