BALANCE AND BORROW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 199, 24 August 1939, Page 10

BALANCE AND BORROW.

A fizzle all through its course, the financial debate came to a tame and unlainented conclusion last night, when the acting-Prime Minister replied to the points raised during the discussion. It was a debating speech in which meinl»ers of the Opposition were scolded in the approved style for failing to accept the Budget holus bolus as a sure panacea for the country's very evident ills, but it failed to throw any light on the method of financing the huge expenditure planned, or on how the country is to be lifted out of the quicksands into which careless administration of its overseas funds has cast it. The taxpayer is faced by a staggering bill which he knows will not reach within millions of the Everest peak of expenditure, even allowing for the £4,500,000 loan recently raised. Glib talk about a balanced Budget does not impress when, so far as can be gathered from the Budget, the facts of the situation have not been faced. The Public Works "bill" alone is nearly 24 millions, of which nine or ten millions has to be raised by some method as yet undisclosed. A frank statement of how it is intended to finance the huge programme planned by the Budget, apart from that accounted for by taxation, would have given real interest and value to Mr. Fraser's winding-up speech.