HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1898, Page 2

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Yesterday's Sitting. the loan bill. The Premier moved the second reading of the Aid to Public Works and Land Settlement Act Amendment Bill. It was not necessary, lie said, to tell the House that at the rate the public works were now being carried on the money available was practically exhausted, and it was necessary, if the works were to be continued at the same rate, to raise this money to carry on with till more was available. He knew there were members in the House who thought that the policy of the past four or five 33 r ears of constructing publio works partly out of loan and partly out of revenue was going on too slow. This feeling, too, was growing in the country. The Government was doing good work under the existing system, but if the work was to be carried on more expeditiously and by means of loan money, it was a matter to be submitted to the House next session. The present Bill would carry on at the present rate for the next five months, and he could not see how members could reasonably object to this. Without it they would have to reduce the expenditure, stop a number of works, and throw a number of workmen out of employment. While the Government had voted the increased expenditure in regard to publio works, the increase of population and settlement had forced this additional expenditure on them. Tiiere had been a demand for land that had r. t existed in previous years, and these settlers in the back blocks had no roads to get their stores in and their produce out. (Mr. G. Hutchison — More shame to the Government.) These settlers had been put on the back blocks by the previous Government and left there. (Captain Russell — I thought you always said we had never put any settlers on the land.) They had put them there, but left the present Government to look after them. With t\ie present population he thought it better to go on gradually with our Public Works expenditure instead of going in for a lavish outlay with the possibility of reviving many of the evils of the past. He would be very sorry to see a departure made from the existing system of expenditure on reproductive works. The proposed expenditure of the money to be raised could be seen in the Public Works Estimates, and he thought members wouldadmit that the money had been fairly allocated. Any complaint that had "been made was from the Government Party, who thought in some cases that their opponents had received an undue shave. Some parts of the colony were so situated that xt was absolutely necessary in the interests of settlement that the works expenditure should there be hea™ 0 * M ian in other parts. This seeme*' w give the favoured parts an \udue advantage, but Ministers were fully determined to give first attention to the works most needed and most in the iuterests of the colony generally. They had not the means at their disposal to spend more on public works than was now proposed. It had been said that they could pass a loan Bill for a million pounds just as easily as this one for half a million. This no doubt was so, and it would have been more popular to go in for the larger amount. He, however, believed a moderate expenditure was best. The Public Works expenditure had increased from £400,000 in 1891 to nearly one million in 1898. At the present juncture he did not believe it desirable to saddle the colony with a large loan. (Mr. G. Hutchison - -It is not near enough to the general election yet.) He believed in going cautiously. The policy of the Government had not been a non-borrowing policj', but it had been a moderate and a progressive policy. The result was that the colony had never been more prosperous than at the present time, and that prosperity rested on a sound and solid foundation. If the time came when they found they were going too slowly it would be for the people to say whether they should go in for a large borrowing policy. There was some difference of opinion as to the allocation of the money now available. (Mr. Pirani — Rather.) He, however, claimed that the allocations were fair and in the interests of the colony. Mr. Guinness regretted that Ministers had not thought fit to bring down a Bill to borrow sufficient money to enable them to complete all the uncompleted railway lines in the colony. He thought this an occasion whon members should let the House and the country know their opinions as to the policy that should be pursued in regard lo the completion of the railway lines of -the colony. He claimed that the present method of completing the lines by expenditure in driblets was most extravagant and wasteful, and gave iti detail his calculations on the economy of raising a sufficient sum to complete the lines as rapidly as possible. It was a wrong policy, he complained, to carry on public works such as the main trunk lines of railway out of revenue obtained by taxation, Instead of using the taxpayers' money for constructing railway works for a future generation, they should reduce the taxation, and do away with their surpluses. In order to complete as rapidly as posnible the nine chief lines of railway in the colony, it would necessitate a loan of £3,726,000, and he claimed that, when completed, these HnSs would soon repa} r the cost of the expenditure incurred. A Ilailway Board could bo appointed to enquire into the possibilities of each of the lines proposed to be completed in order to ascertain whether it would pay to do the work. Captain Russell Paid members had listened with great interest to the-oarefully prepared statistics of the last speaker, but did not think they would be of any practical value to members, at leasb during the present session. If the colony were to borrow the amount suggested it could not all be expended at once, and the greater part of it would lie idly in the bank earning nothing until it was expended and works completed. No attempt had been made to show how the proposed railway works were to pay, and in his (the speaker's) opinion ,euch a policy as proposed by Mr. Guinness would be simply suicidal. They must not run away with the idea that they could impose burdens upon anyone but themselves; and they must bear in mind that the colony was already staggering under a burden of taxation heavier almost than in any other part of the world. The speech of the Premier wns one of the best speeches he had heard him deliver, and, with few exceptions, it was One that he could fully endorse. It whs no use arguing for or against the Bill. It would, ln all probability', pass before the House' rose. Out of the hali'-millioir pro-

posed lo be borrowed, £84,000 was to be speut ou roads on goldfiolds. This seemed to hini out of proportion to the expenditure proposed on railways, which was £175,000. The present system of frittering away a few pounds at one end of the railway and a few pounds at the other seemed to him an entirely wrong system. He would prefer to see one line selected, and the whole of the money available expended upon that line, aud its completion effected as soon as psssible. Concerning the proposed expendi- , ture of £200,000 on railway rolling stock, <fee, he considered this had no right to bo required. They had been robbing the country by professing to pay handsome dividends from the railways, these dividends being paid at the expense of rolling-stock, bridges, rails, and railway stations. Thus it now became necessary to borrow to pay for these. Mr. G. Hutchison said they had listened to three different views from the previous speakers. They had seen the Premier hesitating on the brink of a big loan, his supporter the member for Grey advocating a desperate plunge into a big loan, aud the Leader of the Opposition applying a cold douche to the proposal of tho member for Grey. He did not think the Leader of the Opposition had read the speech of the Premier aright. As he (Sir. Hutchison) had interjected, the time was not yet ripe, but when it came they would see the Premier following in the footsteps of his supporter, and embarking on a great loan policy. He would support tho present Bill not because he believed in the policy of the Government, but because lie was alive to the necessities of the country settlers in bush districts who so badly needed roads and bridge* to open up their lands. Mr. Millar complained of the allocation of the money, and expressed the opinion that Otago had been very badly treated in this respect. Mr. Hogg said the Government was not opening its mouth wide enough in asking for only half a million loan. As to Mr. Guinness's proposals, they were a soap bubble which had exploded before he had finished ifc. Mr. J. Allen deprecated raising provincial jealousies, as it was patent that some portions of the colony must be better treated than others. There were two reasons why he could not support the Bill. Firstly, because he had no faith in the present Administration, and, secondly, that he had no faith in the capacity of the present Administration. Reasons why the Government could not be trusted were furnished by the manner in which they had struggled with the question of police reform. Then they had been trusted with an appropriation of £7000 for a Parliamentary Library, and had committed the colony to an expenditure of £40,000 for .Parliamentary Buildings. They had transferred railway votes from one line to another, and he feared that if trusted with a half-million loan for certain works they might transfer the whole of the money for political purposes. ! Mr. J. W. Thomson differed with the Premier as to the willingness of the House to agree to the borrowing of a million instead of half a million. While preferring to see a self-reliant policy, he would not object to borrowing half a million per annum for, say, 20 years. Mr. Duthie said the most gratifying feature of the debate had been that no one had supported Mr. Guinuess's borrowing policy. He regretted the very small amount of the half-million loan that was to be devoted to railway works. The allocation of £200,000 for railway rolling stock, &c, exposed the robbing Peter to pay Paul policy that had been going on in order to make the railways appear to be paving better than they really were. The £200,000 was simply a subsidy to working railways, and was rendered necessary on account of the Government having deceived the House and the country as to the real condition of the railways. The amount proposed to be expended on the North Island Main Trunk Railway was quite out of proportion to the. importance of this work. The south end of this railway already openad showed earnings equal to any railway in the colony, und no line in the colony had the same prospect of immediately providing returns on the money expended ou it as did this main trunk line for the 20 or 30 miles following the line already constructed. Much as he recognised the need of constructing reads to open up the country, he thought the Government was doing too much in this direction. In all parts they found votes on- the Estimates for the purpose of providing roads opening up lands not the property of the Crown. The expenditure proposed for roadmaking was wasteful to a degree. The reading of the country would be very much better done if it were left to the local bodies. He regretted very much to see that this loan was to be raised locally. The surreptitious manner in which the Government approached the London money market was doing the colony injury, and he believed the colony would get better value for its money if it acted openly and aboveboard in approaching the English market as the other colonies did. Mr. Wilson would not agree to any large loan policy. He would rather err on the side of a policy of "dribbles and drabbles." If the Government would spend another £120,000 on the North Island Main Trunk line, it would soon be recouped by the return therefrom. After further debate the seoond reading of the Bill was agreed to by 34 votes to 16. The Bill was taken in Committee and passed, not, however, without protest being entered at the money for the different lines being voted in a lump sum, instead of the amount to be voted to each line being staled. It was then put through its final stages. The House rose at 1.50 a.m.