Major Atkinson's Speech.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3833, 11 April 1881, Page 2

Major Atkinson's Speech.

The Wairarapa Standard says :—Major Atkinson's description of our finances cannot be surpassed—probably not equalled by any living man within or without New Zealand. But there was a blemish in it after all. It may have been clear and convincing; it may have set many doubting minds at rest; it may have transfixed many men with astonishment; —but still it lacked one important feature. It was not true. No man knows this better than the Colonial Treasurer. Thus when lie told his hearers " that the weekly expenditure during the last two years of the Grey Administration was £110,000," he should have remembered that the men htl maligned were not two years in office. The speaker left office on October 13th, 1877, and took office again on the Bth October, 1879. He said that the Grey Government spent £110,000 per week for the last two years they were ia office, and that the weekly expenditure was " now down to £60,000 or £70,000; " but he did not tell his hearers the important fact from from the nine months returns of the present financial year already published in the Gazette that the weekly sum spent by the Hall Government amounts to about £108,000, per week.