THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1894. THE FINANCIAL DEBATE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2697, 11 August 1894, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1894. THE FINANCIAL DEBATE.

The criticism to which the Financial Statement has been subjected by the Opposition can only be characterised as eccentric. Dr Newman has said that the Statement involves borrowing to the extent of £7,218,000, but the same gentleman by some process of reasoning" also asserted that the £2,000,000 guaranteed for the Bank of New Zealand was equal to £4,000,000. Bellamy’s has not yet been prohibited, and so perhaps the honourable gentleman will be pardoned by some people if he sees double. This is one of the things in politics which we cannot at all understand. It passes comprehension how men who are truthful, honest, and honorable in their everyday transactions, can stand up in Parliament and say what they know to be untrue, and what they know that everybody else knows] as well as themselves to be untrue. Surely Dr Newman knows that £2,000,00 is the sum guaranteed, and unless we are mistaken it is just about enough. But is it not ridiculous to tack this imaginary £4,000,000 to the other items in the Financial Statement, and say it means borrowing to the extent of £7,218,000? The Government proposed to borrow £725,000 without a doubt. The items are as follows:—£250,000 for roads and bridges for opening up the land ; £250,000 for buying native land; £250,000 for buying land for settlement. But supposing they were to spend this sum they will have the land for it; so that iu reality it cannot be called borrowing at all. If a man pays £lO for a cow he has the cow, and so if the Government pays £500,000 for native land and land for settlement, they will have the land. It is also plain that it is no use to buy lands without making roads, and giving access to them. By doing this the value of the land will be increased. The whole proposal to borrow, therefore, is to extend settlement. If the Government decided not to buy land, or not to make roads, but to remain stationary, they would not require to borrow anything. It is all nonsense to say they have not a surplus. No amount of hocus-pocussing could bring out surpluses year after year. That might bo done one year, or two years, but the day of reckoning would come and the trick would bo found out in the end. Sir Julius Vogel began with a deficit of £150,000, which he inherited from his predecessors; he managed the first year to produce a surplus, and on the second he practically made both ends meet, but on the third year, just when he wanted it to go to the country for the general election, no amount of figuring could bring out a surplus, and he had to admit that he was £92,000 short. If Mr Ward were hocuspocussing finance, it would have been found out long ago, but he is not, and no honest critic of the Budget will say ho is. His actual receipts for, the year were £4,653,028 ; his actual expenditure £4,386,359, leaving a balance to credit of £266,679. That surely is plain enough. To this is to be added £283,779 from the previous year, making a total of £550,558. Surely some reliance is to be placed on figures certified to by the Auditor-General. Let us not forget that the Controller and Auditor-General is an officer who is completely independent of the Government. He is just iu the same position as Judges of the Supreme Court; no Minister can interfere with him, he can be removed only by a vote of Parliament, and surely some reliance can be placed on statements to which be has appended his name. The tables bearing out the statements iu the Budget are signed by James B. fleywood, Secretary to the Treasury, Robert J. Collins, Accountant to the Treasury, and James Edward Fitzgerald, Controller and Auditor-General, and surely these gentle men would not sign these statements if they were not correct. That being so it us absurd to doubt them. Then there is £1,009,000 to be raised by Post Office consols they say, but that depends on whether the people take up the consols and if the Government utilise the money to purchase land, and make roads and bridges; then only the sum thus utilised will be borrowed. Surely it ia wrong to charge the Government with having borrowed twice if the Post Office money is to be utilised. They propose to borrow £750,000 for land, roads, and bridges, and if that is taken out of the Post Office consols it is the height of stupidity, if not deliberate roguery, to try to hoodwink the public by charging it twice. we have seen that Dr Hewxnan 1 is in the habit of seejng things double, aud so we cannot feel sjjrprisgd at what he ) as regards the £1,600,000 of cheap money, that is not borrowing, and it is absurd to call it so, Tfie peal truth is that the Government propose to borrow £750,000 to extend laud settlement, and If it is wrong to extend land no moio. i -*roug to borrow for settlement, then it is *. Qovernthat purpose; if the contrary, 0.. . • ment proposals are right The P» *J , i self-reliance is still adhered to ; the old mad borrowing is not resorted to, and the Government proposals are soun ,b , and progressive. If the members of ' ment carry the proposals of ment in their entirety we shall have . season of prosperity. We shall have and settlement,road making,cheap mo y, and those must bring in their train prosperous times. We are afraid of only one thing, and that is tia younger members will bo deluded by t scandalous manner in which the Opposition is exaggerating difficulties, aud spoi the Government by adopting a middle course. If so, indeed the Government s capacity for good will be very much impaired.

LAND FOR SETTLEMENT. The Land for Settlement Bill has boon before the Waste Lands Committee since it passed its second reading, and amended in' rather a mischievous direction. 1 he proposal of tin Govormmvd is that power shall bo given to cuter upon any man’s laud,and take under the Public Works Act, the whole or a part of the arc of an estate, which is over 1000 acres in area. This has been amended so as to enable the owner to make the Government purchase the whole estate. In some instances this would work right enough, but whore larcre and expensive buildings exist, the building would bo valued in with the estate, and that would mako the land too do;:r The Government do not want palatial residences, such as exist on many stations ; tuoy want the laud, and they want to get u, as cheap as possible. Wo trust the House wi’l not agree to this, as in many instances the land-o wner would bo able to

resist all attemps at purchase by insisting on the whole of the land being purchased. For instance, say there is an. estate of 2000 acres on which there is £2OOO worth of buildings, the land is increased in value by £1 per acre, and so on. We trust the House will not agree to this, but will let owners! sell their own houses if they desire to get rid of them.