THE INDICTMENT OF THE MINISTRY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2073, 17 July 1890, Page 3

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MINISTRY.

Subjoined is the speech in which Mr Hutchison charged the Government with corrupt actions in connection with the Bank of New Zealand. It is of considerable length, but we shall give a part of it in every issue until it is finished. He spoke, according to Hansard as follows :—I am not sore, Sir, that the members of the Ministry will feel very much obliged to the honorable member for Waipa. In the first part of his speech he certainly must have given them some hope. He came, if I may use the language with reference to settlement which has been frequently heard in this House within the last few days, as “ a free selector ” to mitigate the rampant “ dummyism ” of the Ministerial benches. Nor am I sore that tbe present disposition of the honorable gentlemen on those benches is such as to give us much hope for the future. We see the honorable member for Akaroa in the seat usually occupied by the leader of the Government, but we cannot even consider him as “a bona fide squatter.” I regret to have to say that the honorable member for Waipa imported a tone of acerbity into his reference to the honorable member for Wanganui. I do not know that he was exactly just, even in quoting the utterances of that honorable gentlemen, or those of the honorable member for St. Albans. The honorable member for Waipa ti Bated their arguments as if, after endeavoring to show that there was no surplus, they yet were in favor ol reducing the revenue of the country. Now, I think that the honorable member for Waipa was wrong in supposing that any arguments addressed to the House by those honorable gentlemen went in tbe direction of reducing the proper revenue of the country, for I take it that the primage duty, which we have by resolution of this House temporarily imposed, cannot properly he considered as part of the revenue of the country for the current year Our sole object is to prevent that resolution, passed in Committee of Supply, being other than a temporary provision, and the arguments, as I understood them, of the honorable members for Wanganui and St. Albans were that we should decrease the taxation of the country, or—as the honorable member for Waipa puts it—the revenue of the country, and that we should address ourselves to a systematic reduction of the expenditure. I noticed throughout the speech of the honorable member for Waipa a vein of sadness—almost of despair—as if there were no grounds for further retrenchment. I think he is mistaken. I have looked through the estimates which have been m our bands for the last few days, and I think that an attentive perusal of them will enable honorable members to entertain considerable hope that they may he materially reduced. What do we find, for instance, under the head of “ Contingencies”? Taken altogether the items for " Contingencies ” total up no less than £100,292. These are votes which this House is asked blindly to pass, but I should think that honorable members will not be doing their duty to themselves or the country if they do not scrutinise these votes more closely than is usually done. I think it would not be an extravagant thing to say that at least half that amount could he knocked off. Then, we have another branch of the expenditure, which I will recur to later on, that of Defence. The permanent force of this colony costs £40,000 a year, and, unless we are prepared, as foreshadowed by the statement, to make considerable further expenditure, that which is now going on will be useless. Then, there are the mail subsidies, part of which has gone and the rest should follow. These three items alone, reckoning only half of the “ Contingencies,” indicate an amount of at least £IOO,OOO which could he saved. I am not in the secrets of the leader of the Opposition, if he has any, but I do protest against the honorable gentleman for Waipa, or any other honorable gentleman, judging the results of any change in the administration of the Government by what has occurred in the past. I deprecate these acrimonious references to former faults. Some of us here, at any rate, have nothing to dp with them. Let tbe dead past bury its deaf}. We have surely something hettey ip the future than afiytbiug m the past, and unJeps we are tQ be overwhelmed with despair we must not consider, and we are not called upon to suppose, that there is no room for further retrenchment. In support of that argument let honourable members bear in mind that the money spent on the Civil Service of the colony hss increased during the past flnaupial year, i he figures will fee found ip these estimates. Butting aside altogether the country Postmasters, tbe members of the Government, the Governor and his staff, and those who may he included in “ Contingencies,” the number of officials this year, according to these, is 7,506, as against 7,888 the previous year—an increase iu twelve months of 148 and this, with our population not increasing, with a depression | which has not appreciably lifted, and with notes of warning uttered, aa the honorable member for Waipa has admitted, throughout the Financial Statement as to the future. That honorable member has described the Statement as able, but he has proved

it to be disingenuous. It is a Statement apparently made for the purpose of arming followers of the Government during the session, and their candidates at the general election —a Statement which will probably be indexed by-and-by for the benefit of the supporters of the Ministry, who may thus he able to turn up the particular passages they require as the gospel of politics in this colony. I say the Statement is not the fairest that could have been given. It is not at all an honest Statement —I use the words, of course, in a public sense—and it deserves a use little better than To line a box Or curl a maiden's locks. (To be continued.)