POLITICAL NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 92, 4 September 1912, Page 5

POLITICAL NOTES.

LAND SETTLEMENT FINANCE. By Telegraph—Own Corresponds. Wellington, Last Night. On this subject, the Public Trustee, in his annual report, suggests that transfers from the association' to the members should be exempted from stamp duty, and that the mortgages from members to the association should be exempt from mortgage tax. These concessions, he adds, would strengthen the finance, which is weak at best. "In some cases," lie says,''the members are already m arrears with their payments, several cases have occurred where a member has leased his allotment with a purchasing clause, the purchase price showing a large profit. It is a question whether this is not against the principle of the Act." AN INTERESTING RETURN. l'or years past various members of Parliament have been asking for particulars of .the cost of the Makohine viaduct, on the North Island Main Trunk line, and it has been left to Mr. Campbell, member for Hawke's Bay, and to the Massey Government, to give the House the nearest approach to definite information that has yet been achieved. The return shows that the estimated cost was £3!),043. The cost of extra works in foundations, etc., was £5570 and slips cost £9GO, making a total of £46,473, and the actual cost was £72,000. The estimated cost of the Maka'tote viaduct was £40,000, and its actual cost, was £56,251. When the return was presented to-day the Hon. R. McKenzie asked, with reference to Alakoliine, if the figures included the cost of workshops and plant, and if so, what was the cost and the position of the work. The plant and workshop had to be used from the beginning to the end of the work. He had no doubt, he added, that the cost of the workshop and plant was included in the total. The Minister for Public Works (Hon. W, Eraser) said that he thought that was highly probable, because the work was not done by contract. If a contractor had done the work the cost might have been considerably lower, because he would iiave had to provide his own workshop. FINANCIAL CRITICISM. On July 2 last the House ordered, on the motion of Mr. Buchanan, a return giving the ijame of the newspaper or newspapers, and the date or dates on which_ the Advertised comments on the financial position of the Dominion were published, and which the Prime Minister recently alleged from the public platform were forwarded, together with the information and the source thereof if available. The remit was presented to the House this afternoon. It is headed '■Nil," signed by Mr. J. Hislop, UnderSecretary for Internal Affairs, and eads as under:—"Careful search has been made in the newspapers of the Dominion without avail."