REFORM'S BAD HARVEST.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 136, 10 June 1924, Page 8

REFORM'S BAD HARVEST.

(To tlie Editor.) Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. John A. Beale, dealing with my previous letter hereon has missed the point enunciated— J one can only deal with general or basic I principles in a short letter. The two I principles I referred to were: (1) Has Mr. Massey'a borrowing and expenditure, for domestic purposes only (since Sir Joseph Ward handed over to Mr. Massey the portfolio of Finance in 1918, leaving £15,000,000 in the Treasury), bfeen stupendously high? (2) Has production increased in quantity proportionate to that huge borrowing and extraction of public revenue from the people. War borrowing I always have treated separately in relation to public finance, but it must be taken into our calculations when we compare from a commercial point of view the relationship of public debt, national borrowing and national income. Reform did tlot finance the war. It was the genius of Sir! Joseph Ward that did this. He left the country prosperous after the war was over, every State Department showing a profit, and this with £19,000,000, of net revenue, leaving a magnificent surplus as above' to meet soldier settlement. The very first year Mr. Massey took over Finance, production fell in almost every avenue, even'butterfat in 1921 became most alarming, although thousands of soldiers were put on the land. The results of Mr. Massey's operations were, that he began the most staggering borrowing policy the country I ever experienced. A total of £48,000,----000 borrowed in five years, or more than half that borrowed by all previous pre-war governments. Side by side he extracted fr.om the people's earnings in revenue per annum sums which jumped from £22,000,000 to £34,260,000 with only one and a quarter million population. Chaos reigned in State departments. Railways were losing £3000 per day; the telegraph department lost over. £100,000 despite great increases in public charges. Country roads, bridges and schools were in a state of dilapidation. Farmers were cut off from the financial markets and were walking off their farms, going bankrupt and in some casea suiciding. Financial houses and big squatters were the only parties able to play safety. Staggering taxation and absurd government valuations lifted the cost of living to breaking point. A crippling land boom was created by the Government, through absurd land purchases far above already fictitious land values. The long list bf falling production I gave, on so many stable food products for the people, with this enormous increase in borrowing, is most significant and shows the Government's land pqlicy is hopeless. Mr. Beale stated I want to turn the Government out, most certainly, and 1 am' using every effort to oust them. If Mr. Beale had a business manager quite incompetent, wrecking his business, would he' not instantly dismiss him? The Government has failed to create a policy of any kind in regard to land and the farmers, but has blundered along living on borrowed moneys which have not lieen directed to increasing production, with the evil results obvious in that direction by a study of the year book.—l am, etc.* HALL SKELTON.