MINISTRY CRITICISED.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 16 July 1917, Page 6

MINISTRY CRITICISED.

SIR JOHN FINDLAY’S SPEECH. RUMOURS OF DISSENSION. WELLINGTON, July 13. The record of the National Ministry -was reviewed this evening by Sir John IFindlay (Hawke’s Bay) in the debate on the Addvess-in-Reply. He said that, to his mind, the National Cabinet resembled not so much a legislative as an executive Government, governing less by Act of Parliament than by Order-in-Council.

Sir John Findlay eulogised the great ■work done by the Minister for Defence hut censured his blind an unreasoning support of his subordinates. The visit of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance to Britain was bound to widen the horizon of the country. It had created an ideal which led us in the directions that New Zealand must not live and act for herself alone, and thereby helped to prepare the way for the new British Empire which was going arise after the war. Though the faults of the Ministry were as thick as dust hi empty chambers, he was hound to refer to the magnificent service rendered by Sir Joseph Ward in Pi acing the Dominion on a. sound financial basis by the arrangement he had made in connection with its loans.

Continuing. Sir John Findlay, said he did not think the personnel of the National Cabinet represented the ablest men in the House. The principle of selecting Ministers in even numbers from both sides was bad. The ablest men should be selected, even if they were outside the House, and the calling of the ablest men to the councils of the country would have avoided the nec--cs§ity for all kinds of boards, the very

existence of which proved the incapacity of the Government. He urged that if the Government was not working with a spirit of harmony, it must govern inefficiently, and rumour —loud, distinct and articulate —indicated that the members of the National Cabinet were not acting with the fine co-opera-tion necessary to efficiency. He complained that the Government was not

sufficiently candid with the House. With a non-party House, such secrecy was unwarranted. The House should not be left in the dark as to the data cn which the Government was acting. The main fault of the Government was its inability to grasp the nettle of its difficulties. Boldness was greater than prudence in a crisis such as that through which we were passing. Courage, just but firm, that would lay hands on monopoly and exploitation was what the country needed. As its first great national duty he considered it was the business of the Government to promote (1) equality of sacrifice; (2) national efficiency and economy; (3) that the best provision should be made for returned soldiers; and (4) ample provision for discharged soldiers and dependants, He criticised the tenderness of the Government towards wealth. If it had been conscripted as soldiers had been, there’ would, be no shortage of means, -with which to provide our men with adequate pay and pensions. The amendment of the law regarding the taking of land compulsorily, which was

made in the Discharged Soldiers Settlement last year, lie denounced as entirely in the interests of land owners, while though it -was known that land valuations had enormously increased since the war commenced, no revision of valuations had enormously increased

since the war commenced, no revision of valuations had been made. Scandalous reductions of rent had been given to Crown tenants, the fruit of which was that the capital value of land purchased under the Lands for Settlement Act had been written down by hundreds of thousands of pounds. This showed that either the original price paid for land was improperly high or that the public purse had been improperly relieved.