THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8231, 7 September 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1906.

Mr Spencer Hughes, writing in "M.A.P.," make some sarcastic but still intensely human comments upon >the way in which the Budget is annually received in the British House of Parliament, It seems that at Home, as in New Zealand, there ia always the financial expert to be found at Budget time. Mr Hughes admits that of all the Budgets he has ever listened to he has never understood one, but. he comforts himself by Che reflection that there are many members of Parliament who are in the same position. Only the expert oan be quite sure, he says, whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer is talking about last year or next year. The average member Gomes down to the House on Budget day grimly determined to see the thing through. He begins to take notes of figures, but he gets bothered between the

millions and the teas of millions and the hundreds of millions. For a time he keeps up, and pretends to be taking notes, while* in reality he is doing nothing of the sort; and at last pretence is laid aside, the pencil is pocketed, and he looks at his neighbours in honest bewilderment. A few will try to keep up the sham to the end, and will nod now and then to the Chanoelior as if saying, "I see, my dear sir," or "I am with you entirely." These are the gentlemen whom it is a pleasure to meet later in the lobbies and ask for their opinions. Of coarse they are deliciously guarded in their replies. As a rule they say something of this sort: "Well, of course, some details of the scheme suggested are open to criticism, and, so far as tfcey are uonoerned, I prefer to reserve my opinion until the committee stage; hut, looking at the Chancellor's proposals in a general way, I really don't see what else bo could have done." Politeness demands that suoh an answer shall Ije reoeived in a properly appreciative manner, but the interviewer is perfeotly conscious of the fact that the gentleman speaking knows nothing, or practically nothing, of what he is talking about. Experiences of this sort are not unknown even in the limited area of ground to be covered by the Parliamentary correspondent in New Zealand, but it is hardly fair of Mr Hughes to "give the shotf away" in this frank and open manner. The ignorance or inacility of the average politician to follow an involved Financial StateI ment offhand generally comes out 'in debate, bat this is not neoes- ' sariiy obvious to the general publie.