THE GOVERNMENT'S RECORD

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 19

THE GOVERNMENT'S RECORD

The Government, when it took office, found a depleted treasury, with applica- ! tions to the Advances Office millions in I arrears; in a few months it overtook all arrears, and in twelve months advanced the record sum of £5,000,000 at low interest on long-dated table mortgages to enable people to own their farms and homes. The present Government turned a deficit of £570,000 (a legacy from its predecessors) into a surplus of £150,000 in one year, after spending on unemployment relief £1,500,000 —the largest I sum ever spent in one year in this country's history. What appeals to me most, as a farmer, is the land settlement legislation of last session which gives the Government power to borrow £5,000,000 to develop and encourage land settlement, and one of the gems of this Act is the .clause which enables the Government to lend up to £1250 on undeveloped land. Any settler can now take up land, and if lie lias, say, £200 cash, can by judiciously spending this on improvements, receive advance payments, from t.ime to time, until £1250 is reached. On the matter of railways, I don't think there is any doubt at all the weight of evidence is against Reform, when we recall the balloon loop, the Taupo railway, and the Palmerston North deviation. Wliile I am not enthusiastic about the South Island Main Trunk, I am prepared to be guided by the statesman who foresaw the success of penny postage, and the Advances to Settlers Act, and put them both on the Statute Book, in the teeth of Tory opposition. When one contemplates the accomplishments of the present Ministry in view of all the difficulties which beset them from the beginning, I do not think we need worry about changing horses "in the middle of tha stream." Let us compare this- Government's achievements with their predecessors. Mr. Coates faced the House with his victorious party of 54 in 1926. Can anyone tell me what he and his party did during their three sessions with everything in their favour ? Orders-in-Council, interference in private affairs, neglect of land settlement, starving of the Advances Office, apathy and general inefficiency characterised those three years in. which so much could have been

done for the welfare of this coufltry. Never did a leader or a Government have a better opportunity to do something enduring for the good of their country, and never did a party fail more lamentably to use that opportunity. OMNUS OMNIBUS.