MR. OKEY'S ADDRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 123, 15 November 1911, Page 4

MR. OKEY'S ADDRESS.

In ill'. Okey's opinion, the cost of administration* of the affairs of this country is altogether too large, being no less than £lO per head of population. He arrives at this by taking the expenditure of all the departments, which is getting on for ten millions, and as our population is about a million, we have the per capitum of "cost of administration."With departments like the railways and post and telegraph developing as they are, it will not be long before the cost of administration is £ls per head of population. This, however, should not be a matter for concern; on the contrary, it is one. for satisfaction, for it indicates a healthy state of progress. We would like to know where Mr. Okey would cut down expenditure. He had a good deal to say about paying public servants good wages and found fault with the smallness of the rise the railwaymen have recently received. Now this rise means an increase in the expenditure of between £BO,OOO and £IOO,OOO. On the one hand, it will thus be seen, Mr. Okey denounces the increase in the cost of administration, and on the other favors a further increase in the wages of the public servants. Where is the consistency? As a matter of fact, increased business in the administration of the public departments must be followed by increased expenditure. Tliat the latter has been justified in the past is manifest by the profits made by the departments. For instance, during the past five years the expenditure in the Railway Department has increased in round figures by £700,000, but during the same period the revenue increased by £1,000,000. The postal expenditure in the same period increased by £350,000, but the revenue increased by £700,000.' Then the expenditure on old age pensions has grown by £IOB,OOO, on education by £210,000, and subsidies to local bodies and expenditure on improving Crown lauds has increased by £200,000. Mr. Okey is not in sympathy with one of the main planks of the Opposition .programme. That is with regard to borrowing, which his Party arc against. He believes in it as necessary to the development of the country, and takes evident pride in stating that he has supported every loan proposal since he lias been in Parliament. We thus have preseuJedl the spectacle of a man advocating borrowing as essential to the progress of the country and supporting a Party who if they ever got into power would stop it immediately. We are at one with Mr. Okey in regard to spending large sums of money on unessential works like the duplication of suburban railway lines. These works ought to have been left till the country liad been roaded and generally opened up. We would point out, however, that millions of money was wasted in the days of the Conservative Governments in building railways in places where they were never needed, and where they have barely paid the cost of axle grease.