The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1890. THE JUGGLER OF FINANCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2030, 8 April 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1890. THE JUGGLER OF FINANCE.

Ms G-eoe&e Eishbe, M.H.R., who was turned out of the Ministry twelve months ago by Sir Harry Atkinson, has thrown a light on the surplus of last year, in a letter in the Catholic Times of the 28th of last March. He says;—

“ You remember of course the sense of gratification experienced by the House when last session the Treasurer announced the surplus of £77,769. The surplus was regarded as a great achievement in finance. It was indeed a great achievement, as you shall see. After the termination of the financial year, for the next (June) quarter —the quarter succeeding the ‘achievement’ and the ‘surplus’—the returns were as follow : Expenditure ... £1,144,,440 Receipts 796,107 Excess of expenditure over receipts for the quarter ... £375,333 Strong language is not required to illustrate the story these figures tell. It i a clear as noonday that liabilities amounting to over £BOO,OOO were not brought to charge, were kept back, in order to create a fictitious surplus of £77,769. An audacious coup, remarkable neither for straightforwardness nor honesty. The corroborative proof of the presence’of that manipulation which passes for financial genius is, that in the next (September) quarter, the ‘dead horse’ having been worked out, and the receipts and expenditure being left to their normal flow, the result was : Receipts £892,612 Expenditure ... ... ypg 24.4. Excess of receipts over expenditure 36 g In the next (December) quarter the* expenditure again tho receipts.” When rogues fall out honest men get their own. Mr Eiaher was expelled from the Cabinet by Sir Harry

Atkinson, and now he is telling tales out of school. The tale he has told } however, is an obvious fact. Sir Harry Atkinson kept back accounts which he ought to have paid in the last quarter of last year, in order to produce a surplus; he had to pay them in the next quarter, and that is the explanation of the discripancy alluded to by Mr Fisher. We have frequently pointed out that the present Government were trying to govern by trickery, and here is further proof of it. This is more like the conduct of one guilty of embezzlement, than that of an honest mam entrusted with the financial responsibilities of a nation.

Now, having seen this, will our readers not believe that there has been a great deal of jugglery in the vaunted retrenchment of this very honorable Government? As an instance of their retrenchment, reductions were made in the department for Native Affairs, m 1888, but since then several new appointments have been made. Two or three judges have been appointed, and two Commissioners, including Judge Edwards, who gets a salary of £ISOO a year. This is the way a great deal of the retrenchment of 1888 was carried out; men were then dismissed while others have since been appointed in their places. Is this honest ? Is not this gulling the public ? What was the good of dismissing men one year only to put others in their stead next year. The good was this : it enabled a fraudulent and dishonest government to make a great show of retrenchment and gull the public. There is one thing wanted in Parliament, and that is a few fearless men who would probe all these scandalous transactions to the bottom. Mr Fisher will doubtless do his best how, but as anything he does must of necessity savour of revenge, his utterances will not have much weight. We want a few vigorous honest men in Parliament, who would not think it beneath them to ferret all these things out and bring them before the country, But this we have not; there is too much of the esprit de corps amongst our members ; they think it infra, dig, to do these things, and consequently scandalous actions pass unnoticed. It is time this was pat a stop to ; it is time we had a truthful man managing our affairs, who would tell us the honest truth about our position instead of trying to throw dust in our eyes with juggler-like tricks, such as Sir Harry Atkinson has been wont to indulge in.

THE LAND QUESTION,

We have been accused of advocating the confiscation of the properties of landowners, because we have favored land nationalisation as an abstract principle. It is needless for us to say that the accusation is unjust. Our readers know tbat we have frequently written in opposition to Henry George’s confiscatory proposals, as suggested in his “single tax” programme. They also know that we have always opposed the “ bursting up policy,” and that the only proposal of that kind to which we have lent our advocacy is that contained in the Land Acquisition Bill. This consisted in giving owners of large estates honest value for their land, if taken from them for the purposes of settlement. Under this bill the owner of a large estate would be allowed to remain in undistuabed possession of, 1000 acres around his homestead, and no estate of a lesser area could be touched. We have always said that

estates are to be touched at all this is the honest and proper way to deal with them. It would not only be dishonest, but ruinous, to adopt the “ bursting-up ” policy. It would ruin the landowners, and do harm to the colony as a whole. We certainly have never favored the confiscation of the property of landowners any more than the property of anyone else. The land owners of this colony have put their labor and money into their land just exactly as we ourselves have done in this paper. It would therefore be as feasible for the Government to step m and confiscate the plant of this paper as to confiscate the interest of a hif | a nd. There is no

difference, and when we shall preach the confiscation of the property of farmers we shall he ready to hand over the plant, goodwill, bookdebts, and all our belongings in this office. The accusation is therefore groundless, but at the same time we are in favor of the Government retaining possession of all unsold' Crown lands. The way the Government is disposing of the lands of the Crown at present is simply disgraceful. They have reduced the price of land from £2 to 10s per acre, and are selling it at that as fast as they can. We should not complain of this so much if the land had been sold for lona fide settlement, but it is mostly sold for speculative purposes. In a few years the men w^°^ reriow buying at 10s per acre will be asking £5 p er acre f o r it, and ir they do not get it they will lock it up untit they succeed in getting up a land boom. This is what we object to, and it is this land wo wish to see nationalised. Neither Sir Robert Stout nor the Hon. John Ballance ever suggested the confiscation of the properties of farmers, and to say that they did is false. On the contrary, they have on all occasions tried to relieve farmers of taxation, but the large landowners’ party frustrated them in their efforts to do so. These are the true friends of the farmers, and if farmers only studied politics they would be able to realise it.