House of Representatives.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 14, 23 October 1871, Page 3

House of Representatives.

MR STAFFORD’S SPEECH. We find, as I have said, that while our debts are steadily increasing, and while our population has been increasing, our revenue has been as steadily doereasing, and yet we find Ministers, perfectly satisfied with that state of affairs, proposing to increase their borrowing powers, and supplement the expenditure for purely departmental services, by increasing the power of issuing deficiency bills from £OO,OOO to £IOO,OOO a year. I wish that, when we turn to the Public Works and Immigration scheme, we could there find some assurance that a more prudent finance was to be the rule, that such large economies were to be practised, such large advantages gained from the expenditure of the money under that scheme, that the deficiencies in our ordi-

nary revenue, as compared with our ordinary expenditure, would be.-b.ul trifles in the air; but, sir, when I turn to the whole policy proposed under the Public Works scheme, I see it marked with nothing but •reckless expenditure, unconsidcrcd, and, with what I'might liave almost termed gambling transactions. I sec no control retained for this House, where it ought properly to remain, as the future expenditure of the country. I see proposals made —contracts, indeed, they are termed—for not only dealing with our money by millions, but for dealing with our land also by millions^—land which ought to bo preserved for the settlement of our children and our children’s children. I see the most ardent zeal and consideration shown by the Government for contractors who are to be introduced into the country. I see that the Colonial Treasurer recommends those largejforcign contractors to be treated in a spirit of the most ample consideration and accommodation, while I see no provision made for the exercise of that proper and legitimate control which this House is by a popular fiction supposed to secure to the people of New Zealand. Before I refer generally to the proposals under the public works scheme, I shall single out for comment that extraordinary anomaly, the Board of Works, which it is now proposed to create. _ The idea of a Board of Works was suggested by honourable gentlemen sitting in opposition to the Government last session. It was no part of the scheme of the Government, but it did appear last session to honourable gentlemen sitting on this side of the House that some safety, some security, was required with reference to the political pressure which would be brought from time to time to bear upon Ministers, and the influences which would be brought to bear upon members of this House. But what do we find is the constitution of the proposed Board of Works as now elaborated by the Government—the idea having been taken up from outside, and now elaborated by the honorable gentlemen ? Why. Sir, we are told, with a flourish of trumpets, in the budget speech of the Colonial Treasurer, and it was repeated in the statement made by the Minister of Public Works, that this was to be a Board lemoved from all political pressure ; that it was to be a security and a means of cautious guidance for the Legislature of the Government alike ; and what do we find to be the proposed constitution of the Board ? Why, one of the most capable of being corrupt ; the most susceptible of political influences that the ingenuity of man could devise. AVe have a proposed Board of nine persons, who, we are told, are to be removed from political pressure, and the Chief of that Board is the Alinister of Public Works —of course, a political chief. There are, then, two ex officio officers members of the Board, who are, more or less, permanent offieers—the Engineer-in-Chief and Assistant-Engineer. And then we come to the most extraordinary proposal that I suppose was ever submitted coolly to a deliberative assembly. AA r e are then invited to authorise that, from amongst the members of the Legislature, six gentlemen should be selected by the Government to act upon that Board, and to restrain the rest of the Legislature from log-rolling and reckless expenditure ; and we are told coolly that this Board is not to be susceptible of political pressure. But the ingenuity displayed in that scheme goes even further ; the proposed scheme does not give those gentlemen, members of the Legislature, a permanent position at that Board ; but it is provided that one-half of them shall retire annually, but shall be capable of re-nomination. AVell, we all know what that means; a child born yesterday could almost see through the ingenuity of such a scheme, so transparent is it. The three retiring members, if they have not been the faithful and obedient slaves of the gentlemen on those benches, however eligible they might otherwise be, are never likely to be. re-nominated ; but those, on the contrary, who show a willing and constant obedience to the dictates of the gentlemen on those benches, are pretty certain of retaining their seats at that «■

Board. Sir, this scheme is so transparently rotten that I cannot conceive that this House would be so lost to the semblance even of propriety as to entertain it for a moment. The Hon. the Minister of Public Works worked himself into a fit of virtuous indignation at a question which I thought it right to put a few days hack, in which I termed, what the Government called the Brogden contracts, “proposals of Mr. Brogden.” I think he even tried to fasten upon me the charge of would-be repudiation for using that term. I say fearlessly that no power or authority has been given by the Legislature of New Zealand under which they can be called contracts. As far as No. 1 contract is concerned, even the Government never for a moment attempted to prove that it was within the authority given to the Colonial Treasurer; but it lias been attempted to be shown, with reference to contract No. 2, that the honorable gentleman did not exceed the powers conferred upon Government by Parliament last session. I propose to take issu upon that suggestion. I say that what Parliament did last year it did as carefully and in as tentative a manner as was possible under the circumstances ; it determine i not to go in for that scheme of the Colonial Treasurer as first proposed last session, which invited the House to agree to the borrowing of a large number of millions, and then, when those millions had been raised, to consider how they were to bo distributed. But it did provide by a clause of the Public Works Act that no railway should be commenced or executed in New Zealand except under the express authority of the Legislature. Well, Sir, what did the honorable gentleman do with that “ excellent diplomacy ” so highly extolled by Mr. Mackrell ? The contracts, or what purport to be contracts, put the power of determining what should be the cost of any railway outside of the Government, and outside of the legislative control, and provide that in all cases of adjusting the cost of the construction of any railway where any difference of opinion occurred between the engineer of the Government and the contractor—and is not certain that differences would arise ? the matter was to be referred to arbitration. I say that by that Act alone the control of Parliament is taken away as to the power of the determining whether or not any railway should he constructed, in consequence of the magnitude of the cost of the undertaking. We know, as a rule, how arbitrations would go against the Government, and by creating that power of arbtiration from which the Government had no appeal whatsoever, there was set up a foreign tribunal outside the Government and outside Parliament, which alone could determine what is to he the cost of railways constructed in New Zealand. And that outside power does not end with the original cost of construction. (To be continued in our next.')