THE BUDGET.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1922, Page 5

THE BUDGET.

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE, OPPOSITION CRITICISM. SPEECH BY MR. WILFORD By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. When the House resumed this evening, Mr. T. M. Wilford (Leader of the Opposition) began the debate on the Budget. He said he proposed to discuss the policy of the Government as set out in the statement, the publication of the public accounts and the taxation report. He proposed to show that while the Government had preached economy, it had not practised it in connection with the finances of the country. The Government had badly blundered, and what was worse they did not appear to be aware o-f the extent to which they blundered. “Incompetenece” was written all over the Budget, and he proposed to indict them with a statement of their own Auditor-General, and in this indictment every Minister of the Crown was implicated. He then quoted a report of the Audi-tor-General —a report which, he said, in days gone by would have wrecked the Government, but this Government would not budge from their seats. The Premier claimed he was saving £200,000 in the public works stores department, but that could not be done, because there was evidence of short deliveries and such, general chaos that it was impossible to keep any check on expenditure. The report of the Auditor-General on the stores department was the strongest indictment of lack of control ever made against any Government in the history of the country. While the Premier was stating he had set out the accounts in the clearest terms, the Audi-tor-General stated this was not th& ease, for he complained that there was no distinction between capital and revenue expenditure, and there were no means of dissecting the items, so that the Premier was able to bluff through the House expenditure which he could not get through if each item was clearly stated.

BURDEN OF TAXATION. Coming to the taxation report, he said there was one thing that everyone should know, and that was that the country had exceeded the taxation limit, and there was no taxable reserve left. Yet in spite of this the Government was proposing to raise new loans and fresh taxes. Taxation in this country was killing production, because the farmers could not get cheap money. Companies were hampered in their industries, and lending companies could not lend, because the rate of interest they have to charge is so high that no one could afford to borrow, and if these companies had not been wise enough to put some surplus profits into tax free bonds they would not have been able to keep going. The blundering extravagance of the Government had brought about a state of affairs which was paralysing industry, and therefore there was justification for the conclusion of the Taxation Committee that we had reached our limit of taxation.

Until the Government made the banks of this country toe the mark as the Liberal Government made insurance companies, there would be no relief to the people, who were being made to pay the piper all the time. What the Government received from the Bank of New Zealand in taxation was a mere nothing to the benefits the people would derive from breaking up the close backing corporation, which existed to the detriment of the public. The mortgage rate was too high in New Zealand, and there were no proposals in the Budget 'which would help the position. Dealing with the Advances to Settiers’ Department, he said the Government had stated they had no funds to lend to settlers, workers and local authorities, but they had never told the people why. This information he had unearthed, and he now told the House that these moneys had been taken by the Premier to invest in Government securities, regardless of the injury done to the workers, settlers and local bodies.

SAVINGS CRITICISED. Coming to “the savings of the Government, he said this was the most farcical part of the Budget. The accumulated surpluses provided by the Liberal Treasurer had gone, and the Railway Department was living on the maintenance surplus built up by the Liberal Government. The Premier’s method of saving was to estimate his expenditure, to spend less than the estimate, and then claim to have saved the difference. With regard to the proposed funding of £27,000,000 of the public debt, he could not see how that transaction was going to be a good contract for the country. He said the Budget showed the Premier expected less revenue this year by £8 000,000 than in the previous year, but on the expenditure side he proposed to spend £119,000 more than when his revenue was £8,000,000 greater, and he asked what could be made of a Government that was so regardless of the relation of expenditure to revenue. In conclusion, he repudiated the statement that the Liberal Party was about to league itself with Labor. Such a statement was a slander, because the Liberal Party stood for the Empire and the Union Jack. He had never admitted in the House that he was prepared to negotiate .with Mr. Holland (Leader of the Labor Party). What he had said was that he was prepared to negotiate with Labor to get proportional representation and prevent vote splitting; that, and nothing more. The Hon. G. J. Anderson, dealing with Mr. Wilford’s references to the Auditor-General’s report, claimed that Mr. Wilford had only partially quoted from the document. Moreover, Mr. Wilford was Minister of Marine in the National Government while waste was going on, but he did nothing to stop it. It had since been stopped, and a careful check was being kept upon all transactions, but Mr. Wilford had not quoted the statement by the Auditor-General that there had been a marked improvement during the past twelve months. The Government, added the Minister, was well aware that the limit of taxation had been reached, but how were they going to reduce taxation, because they could not reduce the public services. If taxation on companies was reduced then they must increase on individuals. Was Mr. Wilford prepared to admit that he was willing to reduce the exemption from £3OO to £250? Jhe debate was adjourned.