WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1922, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE BUDGET DEBATE. HARD HITTING. .. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, August 25. The i t J.bum of the Budget Rebate, as was to be expected on the eve of a general election, is being relieved by some ■ hard hitting on both sides of the House, iSo far as the actual talking concerned. the Opposition has fully held its own in the lively exchanges. On the 1 opening night Mr. Wilford, in all that • tickled the ears of the galleries, was j more facile and apt than was the Minister of Labor, and on Wednesday Mr. | Sidey and Mr. Forbes were more than a match for the Minister of Justice. Mr. Lee has in an aggravated form his colleagues’ tiresome trick of putting questions to the Opposition they never expect to be answered. Mr. Massey, though, of course, reserving his heavy artillery for his set reply, is really bearing the greater part of the burden of the debate. Resting his body as best be can with such inadequate accommodation as the House provides, his mind is always alert and his interjections, of which there are ftiany. pointed and frequently effective. He dominates the House as it never has been dominated before, not even in Mr. Seddon’s days, and dwarfs his supporters at least as much as he does his opponents. TAXATION AND LOYALTY. These subjects, separately, involved first Mr. Sidey and then Mr. Forbeh in little controversies with the Prime Minister on Wednesday. Mr. Sidey, who seems at the moment to be the only possible Liberal Minister of Finance m sight, chided Mr. Massey in his own gentle way for persistently asserting that taxation was lower in New Zealand than in Australia. The member for Dunedin South had been pained by the Minister’s application of mere camouflage to serious politics. It was unworthy of his high office. Then followed an entertaining dialogue. Mr. Massey: “That is wrong. I believe I am the only man in New Zealand who has got the figures.” Mr. Sidey: “T cabled for them and have them here.” Mr. Massey: “I have figures to June 30 of this year, and you have not.” Mr. Sidey: “Oh, yet, I have. Here they are.” Mr. Massey: “All right, I can prove you’re wrong?’ And there the truth waA left wrapped up. to be unfolded, no doubt, when the Minister makes his reply at the close of the. debate. The probablo explanation of the whole matter is that while one honorable gentleman was talking about the rate of taxation, the factor,, that counts, the other honorable! gentleman was talking about the revenue obtained from taxation.

SICK AND TIRED. a It was the Minister of Justice that led Mr. Forbes into trouble. One of the string of questions he had put to the Opposition benches earlier in the evening implied that their reiterated professions of loyalty brought them under the suspicion of disloyalty. The member for Hurunui declared he was sick and tired of this sort of thing, and disgusted by, the action of the Prime Minister iK dragging the question of loyalty into party politics. Mr. Massey that he had done nothing of the and Mr. Forbes retorted that the ister had set before his audience at FoXton a choice between the Union Jack and the Red Flag. Mr. Massey explained, that he had been referring to the Lib* erels’ allies, and Mr. Forbes forthwith dubbed the leader off the Houae master of innuendo and One hot word led to another, but who# Mr. Forbes declared the “Minister wonfa deny anything when it suited him,” thd Speaker pulled him up smartly, and hd accepted Mr. Massey’s assurances wiifi a broad smile of unbelief. The membq}? for Hurunui played big football witK distinction before he took to politics, and having acquired ,the best spirit the old game there is nothing that disturb his equanimity in the new. v AGRICULTURAL BANKS. Mr. W. J. Polson, the president b$ the Farmers’ Union, essayed in the Dominion on Wednesday to demolish the critics of his agricultural banks scheme. I His strong card was his recollection that i when the Bank of New Zealand was in I trouble in 1894 the Government of the day had rushed to the assistance of the ! shareholders with two millions of moneyilf the Government could do that for the investing public, “the drones of the i hive,” how much more worthy of help, !he asked, was the “producing class,” which has “the fortunes of tile whole community in keeping.” The appeal appeared irresistible. But yesterday some disagreeable person in the columns of the same paper reminded those who had •forgotten that the Government of 1894 gave no assistance to the distressed shareholders. On the contrary, it imposed upon them terms which compassed the ruin of the great majority of them. Mr. Polson must try again if he still hopes for his agricultural banks to be I helped from an empty Treasury.