The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1918 THE FUTURE.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 November 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1918 THE FUTURE.

(With which is Incorporated The Taihape Font and WalEvnmo News).

From the Minister of Finance’s annual Budget, which reached this office yesterday, it was hoped some ray of light would be forthcoming illuminating the future, but Ministers are evidently pursuing a campaign of secrecy, or they know no more about what the morrow is' to bring forth than the ordinary man about town. About the future there was blank silence, except that the occasion was taken by the Minister to say that he knew nothing about it; he inferred that the world trade, commerce, and finance were in the melting-pot and no one could yet divine what the recasting would be like. Sir Joseph Ward refrained from predicting anything of the future beyond the financial year for which he was estimating. He may or may not have fairly strong convictions about the future, good or bad; he may have a much closer knowledge of what banking, shipping, and mercantile interests generally in London and New York are manoeuvring that the ordinary stay-at-home citizen can not have, hut the future of those interests may be so submerged in the legislative sea of doubt as to render any statement thereon a veritably two-edged sword, cutting deeply into the unexpected. Really, all that the Minister is particularly optimistic about is that strong finance will prevail in this Dominion, in other words, the people of this [ country can carry a much higher ! standard of taxation than has yet been reached. Search the Budget from Alpha to Omega and nothing substantial is found to warrant such optimism; there is a pervading halo of promise over the whole document about the gold and riches to come from increased production, but not one practical proposal, or intimation is recorded of how and when this increased production is to commence. It is well and generally known that the Minister of Finance cannot control, in the National Government as constituted, the policy governing pro- | ducti>n; that he can only iterate and reiterate the warning that production and still more production is absolutely I essential to bring to pass the glorious future he optimistically sees still far in the distant future. The slogan about production is becoming as insulting and disgusting as the old howl about “settlement and still more settlement.” Taxpayers of the country have learned that the settlement gag was the smoke barrage for a campaign of aggregation unequalled at any period of this country’s history. The production gag has its mission; while the production camouflage campaign is at its height Mr. Massey is preparing a scheme for providing returning soldiers with any amount of navvying work. When the men return to this country from the various scenes of war, thousands/of them accustomed to land and farm work will be told to go navvying till farms can be made available, and the farms will never materialise except in accordance with Ministerial pleasure, at least, that is the only inference to be drawn from the evidence available. It is stated that the Government will do 1 many things, but such promises, like * the proverbial pie-crust, are made to j be broken at will, and nobody is so ! foolish now-a-days to put any trust in | princes of any ilk or description. The | Government policy in regard to pro- ! duction, industries and commerce would appear to be a complete blank judging from the three short paragraphs devoted to them in the Budget. It is stated a high standard of production has been maintained in the past, high quantity, high quality and high prices. In the present year, the Minister is careful to state, the arrangements for tEc' purchase of our wool, meat, butter ancf cheese by the Imperial Government is a guarantiee that the Dominion may expect a continuance of prosperity throughout the year, that is for the current year. The want of provision for the future as disclosed in the Budget will come as a shock to most people, more especially as Members of Parliament are clamourously interrogating Ministers

with respect to their schemes for increased production; it states; “In view of the necessity for increasing production every effort is being made to organise a system under which advice and information in this direction will be made available for producers.” Here is the admission, it may be implied, that despite the persistent Ministerial howl for increased production j nothing .has yet been accomplished in evolving a scheme or policy beyond an “effort” to organise means for giving farmers’ advice how to produce, to teach grandmothers how to suck eggs. It looks very much as though the National Government were hanging back for something in the nature of indemnity for this country's war costs, and if anything of the kind does materialise the increased production business will be dropped as a hot potatoe, and reforms and reorganisations will be represented by more aggregations and more alienation of the public estate. Wnether the National Government is in earnest about increased production or whether it is not there is no shadow of doubt about the earnestness of the people, and if present administrators will not put more men on land to increase production they will undoubtedly have to give place to those who will. The country is not going to be hoodwinked by kudos claimed for obtaining indemnities, for whatever Mr. Massey can accomplish in that respect it is well understood that hundreds of present private citizens could easily' surpass. Reorganisation of social, political and industrial conditions in the near future is something established in the minds and determination of the people, and it is safe to venture the opinion that any political jugglery indulged in to circumvent the public determination will prove disastrous to many besides the active participants. Peoples ,of the world are unsworvedly bent upon the establishment of new conditions, conditions that eliminate the practice of robbery whereby the actual existence of the British race is menaced. Members of the House call upon the Government for an indication d? what phase reorganisation is to fake in New Zealand, but no answer to their question is forthcoming; nothing is in sight, despite the fact that thousands of our soldiers have been turned out of camps, thousands are on the water from England and France, and thousands more are to be shipped immediately, and yet nothing is in sight for their absorption into civil life. Since 1912 the policy of this country has been one of drift and exigency, and there are signs that it is to continue till it produces the disaster that' is the inevitable of all such incapacity. The Minister for Finance has clearly and .satisfactorily stated the financial position for the present year, hut is it net a fact that he refrains from guessing about the future because of the uncertainty of the course his unnatural partners in political power will follow? The people of Britain are left in no such uncertainty; Mr. Lloyd George plainly states there must be no more trampling of human beings to death; he says that it is not the weak that go to the wall, but the most daring and remorseless commercial robbers that succeed. Every available foot of cultivable land is to be used, up in providing farms so far as it will go, and. he says, if the power of the robber and profiteer in Paliament stands in the way, the people shall be appealed to again and again till a sane, humane Parliament is elected. As Mrs. Malaprop says, “comparisons are odious.” In fact provision for the future in New Zealand has not yet commenced, therefore there can be no comparison. The success of the country must largely depend upon what is acomplished in the immerdia' future.