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Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 246, 17 October 1872, Page 5

towards the interest and unking' fttrid on; works in course of construction, and that is the amount which the honorable gentleman " states he intends to take for interest and sinking fund from the Public Works Fund. But I made the charge according to a defined principle, aud I offered, if the principle was not sufficiently comprehensive, to enlarge it. Jt is fully, to my mind, to object to tha into 05lo 5 l on the railways and works now in course of construction being capitalised, and if the cost is to be capitalised what more proper than that the source from which the capital is supplied should complete the work of finding the capital. Next year the Hon. the Treasurer intimates the probability of increased taxation. lam not blind to the fact that this threat is meant to sorely discourage and render unpopular the prosecution of the colonizing policy ; but if taxation is to be resorted to next year to enable the interest on works in course of construction to be defrayed out of the Consolidated Revenue, why should it not be done this year ? I canuot think of anything more damaging to the public credit, or, if [ may use the expression, more derogatory to the character of the public men of the Colony than that a gentleman holding the position of a Colonial Treasurer should do that which he avowedly consider* unfair to the public creditor. Every honorable man must shrink from such proposals when made by those who consider them unfair to the puttie creditor. With the ideas the honorable member has he should risk the odium of proposing increased taxation instead of showing that in obedience to the dictates of expediency he is ready to do that which in effect he himself considers dishonorable. And so I take leave of this singular Budget. Most that is new in it is not true, and most that is true in it is not new.. In the overmastering desire to make it a reflection on the late Government, the boundaries of common sense and fair dealing have alike been crossed, and involuntarily its framers have paid by it the highest testimony to their predecessors, because they have shown that with all their efforts they are unable to make out a stronger case. The Colonists would laugh this Budget to scorn, but that they will bitterly lament that one of its purposes is to discourage Public Works, aud that it covers a serious, if not fatal, blow to the most useful institutions in the country— the Highway and Road Board Districts.