RUSH FOR GRANTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 197, 19 August 1913, Page 9

RUSH FOR GRANTS.

FIVE TIMES THE AVAILABLE MONEY. (By Telegraph.-Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINCiTOX, Monday. One of the earliest railway deputations this session put in a plea for the South Main Trunk to-day, and named £100,000 as the figure which will satisfy it. There are manj- more deputations to come with similarly good cases and large demands before the Public Works Estimates show whether their hopes are realised, but already the sum total of requests has outrun the supply of cash.

"We have up to date," declared the Minister of Public Works to the South, Island deputation, "applications for new votes, apart from the amounts in last yaar's Estimates but not expended on March 31st, about six or seven times as much as I can provide. Last year it was the same thing. There is a limit to what -we can spend. I know that some places are a little extravagant in their demands, and it is my duty to allocate the .available money fairly and .equitably. Someone had spoken hopefully in anticipation of the railway getting a share" of the three-million loan raised by the Hon. James Allen. How.often have I to repeat," said the Minister, "that'not a penny of that three-million loan is available for new works? Every penny of money put on the Estimates for-new-work this year is. to be borrowed, and not a shilling has been borrowed yet. Mr. 'Rutherford, an ex-member of Parliament, who wa.s"included in the deputation, asked: "Does Mr. Allen want to go Home again?" Mr. Praser: "No, i think the credit of the Government is sufficiently established to enable its to get without Mr. Allen going home again:"