BUDGET POINTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 69, 12 September 1911, Page 7

BUDGET POINTS

PROPOSALS IN TABLOID FORM. SUMMARY. Remissions in railway fares. Assistance to widows. Railway employees. ', Additional 1 funds for workers' homes. Remissions in gifts and estate duties. State assistance to iron and oil industry. Advantages to old age pensioners. Government aid to farmers through co-operative banks. State note issue. Electrification of Lyttelton itunnel. Harnessing and utilisation of Lake Waikairemoana. Purchase and settlement ■ of native lands. Irrigation. Prosecution of roads. Development of mining. National provident encouragement. Public son'ice classification. Defence on practical basis. Land for settlers under the Land Settlement Finance Act. Insurance against unemployment. Cheapening cost of living. Financial assistance to associations of farmers. Increases in salaries of the public service on Supplementary Estimates. Increase graduated land tax on large estates. Land settlement. Acquisition of private estates. Progressive, railway, roads and public works policy. Advances to settlers, workers . and local public bodies.

Promotion of agriculture throughout Dominion. Establishment of .State farm in South Istand. Maintaining' stability of the Dominion's finance. Surplus, £1,380,483. Record revenue, £10,297,023. Treasury bills all cleared off, £700,000 having teen spent on this object since the Government took office in 1906. Over 86 per eent. of the public debt incurred since 1891 is interest-bearing. Current year's expenditure estimated at £10,130,506. Revenue, £10,429,010. Probable surplus, £878,927. Public works loan of £1.500,000 this year for rai'hvays, roads, bridges and othw urgent development works. Over one million sterling spent last year on new railways. Experimental farm is to be established in South Island.

■Land tax last year totalled £628,723, a decrease of £13,547; income tax, £407,235, an increase of £90,400.

Royal Commission will be appointed to enquire into the possibility of successfully establishing an unemployment insurance scheme associated with the friendly societies in New Zealand and the causes of the increase in the cost of.living. Gift duty on gifts between husbands and wives, parent to child, up to £IOOO, and to stranger in blood up to £2OO to be remitted.

The old a'ge pension will be increased 50 per cent., and the pension age lowered; in cases of women and men with children under sixteen years of age. About £55,000 will be spent on pensions to widows (irrespective of age) with children left in poor circumstances.

Liberal State assistance to the oil and iron industries is promised. If this does not have prompt results, the iron industry will bo developed by the State.

Advances to workers for homebuilding will be largely increased; £750,000 per annum to be provided.

Farmers' <?o-oj>erative banks will lie established on linos similar to those successfully operated in fiermanv. 'They wall give small fanners credit unattainable bv present methods. Dual scheme of public works and land settlement will be inaugurated, giving lucrative employment to settlers in the early stages of their pioneering. State notes will supersede the present issues in due course.

Long-distince railway fares will be reduced. Th'ev will be 1 i/i d instead of ly:,dl per mile first class and threefarthinsrs instead of a penny per mile sevwid-class.

Railwaymen's wages to be increased l>v an anwreirate of £95.000. Casual workers' minimum will lie 9s per day. Day-wage men in Post and Telegraph Department will receive Is l 1 instead of Us per hour.

Durinw Sir Joseph Ward's Premiership the public has sived £1.403,547 in Customs dutips, £1.150,000 in railway charges, and £378.745 through post amli telegraph concessions. P.iipe of subdivision o.f )ai>ge estates demands acceleration. Three years' notice is given of a 25 per cent, increase in <jra<lu>ted tax on estates valued at over £IOO,OOO.

End of our public works scheme uow in sight. A Commission of members and experts should decide once and for all what are necessary railways in each island, which should be completed out of borrowed money. Public, service classification saheme completed, and will be brought into operation after opportunity to appeal has been provided. Public debt totals ,t'S 1,000.000. Profits are earned by 58 per cent, of this sum, while 11 per cent, is imWrectly interest-bearing, and 31 pet cent, nonreproductive, the latter including cost of Maori wars, roads, bridges, lighthouses. immigration, coal and goldfields development, and loan-raising charges.