THE INDICTMENT OF THE MINISTRY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2079, 31 July 1890, Page 4

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MINISTRY.

(Speech delivered by Mr Hutchison, M.H.R., in the House of Representatives, July 3, 1890.)

(Concluded.)

Now, what is the position with reference to next year ?, Honourable gentlemen will find from Table No. 4 (pages 43 and 44) attached to the Financial Statement, although no special remark is made with reference to the fact, although no attention is drawn to its importance, that next year there are four loans falling due, amounting to £1,813,184 ; to meet which there are accrued sinking funds amounting to £609,786, leaving a balance of £1,208,398, subject to some slight reduction in the shape of sinking funds that may accrue in the meantime. Worse still, there is, in the year 1892, a loan of £4,257,700 to be met. There is thus a total within the next two years of nearly five and a half millions to be paid, after taking credit for accrued sinking funds. But, Sir, we are to have “no more borrowing ! ” Is not this Financial Statement most illusive —is it not most deceptive—in glossing over these facts, with “ a surpl'us ” claimed, to support which we must have a new; meaning for the word when the next dictionary is issued in New Zealand ? Is it not mere paltering with the truth mere, cheating of our eyes—to state, as This Statement does, that we are to have no more borrowing, in the face of these five and a half millions to be met within the next twenty - four months? And that, Sir, will notvbe all. No prospect is held out of meet : ing the £400,000 of debentures which were floated in 1887. They will have to be met also within that period.

An Hon. Member: To whom do they belong ? Mr Hutchison. —They belong to the Colonial Bank. I believe the Government claim that they made a very successful financial operation by the floating of these debentures two years ago, although the gilt has been taken off that statement by the publication, after last session, of the information that we had to pay £SOO as stamp duty in London. However, these £400,000 of debentures will have to be met. And then there are the loans to local bodies, which at present amount to £250,000. Ho provision is indicated for that debt. With reference to these loans to local bodies, I, as a country member, have a complaint to make against the Colonial Treasurer. I speafc, feelingly, and : I say that I and many other honourable members in this House, and certainly many of our constituents, have,been rated especially to meet loans advanced under the Loans to Local Bodies Act, succeeding the Roads and Bridges Construction Act. Settlers ir various parts of the colony have had to repay advances so made at the rate of 5 per cent., of which 1 per cent, should have gone to form a sinking fund, But nothing has been devoted to that purpose. Let it be told the Colonial Treasurer that he has collared our sinking fund!

Mr Kerr. —What has he done with it?

Mr Hutchison.—He has put it in his surplus! Then, Sir, there is the deficit in the Land Fund. There is no prospect of that being met in the ordinary course, and we must, I fear, look forward to there being a further deficit within the next two years. If we put down £70,000 as representing the deficit of the Land Fund as it will be in 1892, we should probably not be exaggerating the amount. 1 his is the matter on which the Premier yery bl»ndly says, “ I do not propose to deal with it this year but some one will have to deal with it next year or the year after. Then, there is no doubt about it, when this large loan has to be floated consideration will have to be given to the claims of certain parts of the colony for an extension of the railway system. The honourable member for Dunedin South has indicated that the Otago people will not be satisfied until they get an extension of the Central ; and I think the people of the Worth Island, or of this part of it, will not be satisfied, until the gap between Woodville and Eketabuna is completed, and the railway systems of the north and west thus connected with Wellington. If we put down a million for railway extension we shall not be overstating the amount that will be required. Then there is, l am afr?id, almost too certain £200,000 to be provided for the New Plymouth Harbour Board. I do not know if the payment which the Colonial Treasurer ventured on making upon the pretended authority of the Public Accounts committee of last session was more intended to cover the conversien scheme, which would mature at a time prior to the payment of the interest, of whether it was not rather to saddle this colony with the liability of the New Plymouth Harbor Board. You will remember that the claims of this Board have always been treated as peculiar ; and so they are, for, now that no further money can be advanced, the Board has defaulted, and jtfye bondholders in London are entitled to put in a Receiver, who may claim to have a place at the Treasury Board and a seat also at the Land Board of Taranaki, in order to secure the 25 per cent, of the land revenue of that provincial district—a humiliating position for any colony to be placed iu. The bailiff is in possession. We

may dress him up, as Charles (Dickens is said to have done, as a liveried servant, but be will be a bailiff! all the same and will not retire until his claim is satisfied. If we now add up the 1 various sums which,! have enumerated, 5 and ,if we add the expenses necessary for floating such a loan, we come | within a little of eight millions! [What does the honourable member I for Waipa think of the Financial i {statement now F Within, I say, a -a year or two this colony wiill have to jfind eight millions in , the London j market or become default. It is I enough to make a man ill. I do not j marvel ,at the absence of the • Colonial Treasurer. A year ago he [was hale and stalwait—?one whose i giant strength men talked of ; and jnow he has broken down! There I has been, indeed, sufficient cause, t What is our out loek ? We wish to j “ leave this land as a noble heritage ito our children.” It will Lave to be done by better men than those who at present hold the Treasury benches. I will not, [ whatever:. ;I ; may think, i refer, to these honourable _ gentlemen j as the pimps and panders of banks and loan and mortgage companies, because that would be unparliamentary - but I deplore the fact that, the conduct of those who. occupy the (government (benches has been-such as cannot be described in parliamentary language. They have,sacrificed the* interests of i this colony through''three long years. JWe are not safe for one single hour i while these gentlemen have control of ithe finances of the colony. No i wonder that they cling to office, and i that they wish to postpone their day ;of reckoning. No wonder that they I want this moribund Parliament, meeting in what I may call this mortuary | chamber, to grant, them A supplies for another year. We are* under a system of triennial Parliaments, and yet we ; are asked to vote supplies for a fourth year, so that . those gentlemen may hold office till next 'session. I hope they will not succeed. Whatever the temper of this House may be-~what-ever maybe the numerical divisions in this House—l take leave to say, with unusual confidence, that out of doors the Government have not a majority. On the hustings they will be impeached, and at the ballot-box : they will be. condemned.