EVENING SITTING.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8598, 27 September 1893, Page 6

EVENING SITTING.

The House resumed at 7.30 p.m. PUBLIC WORKS ESTIMATES. Dr. NEWMAN continued speaking on the Public Works Statement, and severely criticised its details. He also referred to the necessity of more vigorous administration of the rating lands, and complimented the Minister for Education on the increased education vote. Mr G. HUTCHISON said that the sum of money intended to be asked from the House this year was £723,068, not £690,000 as Btated by O c Premier. The expenditure proposed for this year was higher than any year for the last six years. In 1888 the amount expended was £613,939; in 1889, £482,464 ; in 1890, £554,760. In 1891, the year after the present Government took office, the public works expenditure commenced to rise being £391,612, and in 1892 £472,962, according to official documents, but in reality it was £502,702, and in the present year of 1893 they were asked to vote £723,068. He asserted that they were very nearly at the end of their resources, and he asked what they were to do next year. Were they suddenly to drop from an expenditure of over half a million of money on public works ? He asserted that the Government borrowed £200,000 in 1891 from the released sinking fund, and in 1893 —160,000 had been realised from conversion operations at the end of the financial year. Tnere was no doubt this debate would be conducted by the Opposition side of the House and he asserted that a more nefarious Public v. orks Statement had never been delivered. a.c agreed that large appropriations had been made for South lsl&nd and also{or the 2sorthof Auckland, and there was no fcoubt that a good deal of money had been allocated in view of the coming elections, and he pointed out that the House was asked in addition to £723,000, to authorise iiabilities to the extent of £70,000, and where, he asked, was that money to come from ? TTia opinion waa

that the House would not be doing its duty unless it scanned closely every vote on those estimates. Referring to the great co operative scheme he Avas sorry to state that the report from the head of the Public Works Department had ceased to be of any valne. Since the present Premier took office they knew that the men employed on those co-operative works were Knights of Labour, banded together for political purposes, and they were really masters instead of employees. This system was notoriously dependent on loan money, which they were told had ceased, or on the taxation scheme. It was likely to prove more injurious to the men themselves by disorganising the market on which they must depend ultimately for employment. The present Government han been borrowing secretly from the first, and they had no claim whaV-*ver to the confidence of the peopie. Mr WARD said Mr Hutchison was in the habit of misrepresenting facts in a way not creditable to hin;seif, aad if he expected the House to swallow them he must have a very poor estimate of it. Mr Hutchison bad stated that £653.989 had been spent on public works in 1888, whereas the authorisation in thac year was £1,153,382, in 18S9 also the authorisation was £916,537, instead of £464,000, and the same thing occurred with respect to the other years, which showed either that he wished to mislead the House or wanted to place an unfair comparison before hon. members. The policy of the present Government was to settle the land, and therefore it was manifest that money must be spent in roading lands for settlement. He denied Mr Hutchison's assertion that the public works expenditure of tbe present year was voted to influence the coming elections. He thought that imputation was unworthy of the hon. member. The fact was that the demands on the Government for roads alone amounted to £475,000, and Mr Hutchison himself had made a claim for his district of between £50,000 and £150,000. After reierring at some length to the position of the Imperial guaranteed debentures, he stated that both Mr Mitchelson and Mr .Hutchison had endeavoured to mislead the House in this respect. Dr. Newman had complained that Wellington had been neglected in the Public Works Statement, but he pointed out that no less than £78,898 was proposed for railways in the Wellington district. Mr Hutchison also had stated that, owing to the preponderance of Southern men in the Cabinet, the South Island had been exceptionally treated. He pointed out, however, that the North Island was to receive £175,763 for railways, whilst the South was to receive only £85,015. The same proportion existed with respect to roads. The total for railways and roads in the Nor.th Island beiue £380,835, against £190,966 for the South Island, the reason for the difference being that the South was j more settled than the North Island. He asserted .that the public works expenditure as proposed this year was not excessive, and it had been impossible in the past to spend the full amount of the appropriation. The present Government were a Government of resource, and they had had to use their brains. The best compliment that could be paid to the Government was that the colony was prosperous, as was admitted by the member for Eden. He believed their revenue would keep up, and that the co-operative scheme, which had been so much abused by the Opposition, would not suffer if the revenue decreased. Assuming that the revenue did decrease it would be the duty of the Government tc meet it by reducing their expenditure. The number of men employed at present on public works was under 2000, and although there was every hope of a surplus next year, he deprecated the predictions of those who said that the revenue would decrease. Their object should not i be to weaken their finance, but to strengthen it. If the present Government could be accused of borrowing money under conversion operations, the late Sir Harry Atkinson was the greatest sinner in that respect, and when hon. members said the present Government increased the debt by £910,000, they did not do justice to themselves and stated what was not accordiug to fact. He regretted to hear Mr Hutchison state that reports from the Public Works Department were not to be relied on, and he (Mr Ward) would place absolute reliance on the reports from the officers of that de- j partment. He did not believe thac the engineers the Public Works Department throughout the colony were capable of act- | ing dishonourably, and no Minister on the benches would allow high estimates to be made in co-operative works. The whole evidence in that respect was from a discharged overseer. He held that whilst the Government should be prudent they should persevere in tbe course they had laid down for themselves in the settlement and colonisation of the country. Mr RICHARDSON said Mr Ward's utterances were very clear, but were rather rapid for any one to take 'notes of them. He referred to Mr Ward's statement that the Government had incurred large expenditure on roading lands, and he wished that were correct, as it had been a serious matter of complaint from him. He found that the expenditure on roads for the last two years was £116,000 a year, whilst on railways for that period they had speut £247,000 a year. The Treasurer had admitted that the public works expenditure wa3 increasing year by year, and had said that was a proper thing when times were good. He referred at some length to a series of tables prepared by him last year, and said that although the Government ridiculed those figures they were .since used by Ministers themselves, and could not be contradicted by them. Referring to the conversion operations he said that conversion by the Government was a ruinous financial transaction. He severely criticised the Colonial Treasurer's speech. to Mr Ward's finance he asserted it had cost the colony £273,000 in increase of debt to get £160,000. He also stated that Government had paid £585,000 for £500,000. The whole of the proposals of the Government might be summed up by the remarks, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," and every scrap of loan money would be used up by next year. He estimated the expenditure for this year at £473,000, and in doing that he felt'he was doing the Government no injustice, but he was sure that by the end of the financial year there would be very little more money left than would meet liabilities up to that period. They were therefore unwise in going to the extreme end of their tether without providing for the future, and his opinion was that whether the present Government or any other Government was on the benches next year, they would have to go in for & new loan. There was no getting away from that; for that reason alone he almost wished the present Government would get back to power, to see how they would meet their difficulties, after all profession of self-reliance.

Sir R. STOUT regretted that the Statement had been brought down at such a late period of the session. There could not be a Statement of broad lines of policy, but he felt if Mr Seddon had more money he would have satisfied more members. He complained of the insufficient votes for roads on the West Coast, ond said no doubt other places also suffered. With respect to the Public Works policy to be preserved he thought they must either go in for a loan or restrict expenditure to a quarter of a million a year. The present Statement provided for £64,000 more expenditure than there waa money to meet, and if the Government expended any more they must go in for a loan. The Government were practically asked to make bricks without straw in the demands made on them for roads in every district. Hβ thought the Minister should bring down his estimates in" the first week of the session and they should then be sent to a Committee who would thoroughly sift them and be able to explain them to the House and state whether any particular road should or should not be made. The same thing might be done with respect to the railways. This would mean a change in their system, but he held that they couid not go on year after year increasing their debt. They were now met face to face with the question—Were they to begin borrowing again ? He did not think the colony was prepared for that, and the public works expenditure should be limited to a quarter of a million a year. He submitted if the question of borrowing were put to the country it would not respond to it, but he asked the Ministry whether they would not undertake to reduce expenditure to a quarter of a million a year ; if not, they would have to borrow. He only rose to say that, and he did not propose to discuss the Statement itself.

Mr ROLLESTON said the Statement was really bringing their finance into a much worse position than before, and it made it hopeless to devise a satisfactory system of dealing with our roads. He thought they should revise the whole of the land system, and that the land fund of the day should contribute largely to the settlement of land. The ballot system in his opinion was working very badly. There were some roads on those Estimates]! which he himself had put on twelve years ago, and the North of Auckland expenditure was out of all proportion. The present Estimates were about the greatest lnese he ever saw. They were drifting back into the system of purchasing votes all over the country, and there was no principle of justice in them. Mr MACKENZIE (Clutha) thought that the Minister for Lands had done his best to allocate the money at his disposal for roads in a fairly satisfactory manner. He was glad to see a vote on the Estimates for Catlin : s River. He had no intention of dealing with the Pnblic Works Statement.

Mr BRUCE thought Sir R. Stout's proposal with respect to a Committee to examine the votes on the Estimates a very valuable one. He also agreed with Mr Rolleston that the Land Fund should contribute towards the roading of the land. Mr HARKNEdS complained that his district did not receive fair treatment in the matter of roads, and said the votes for the North of Auckland were freely given to members supporting the Government, while those members who did not support them and whose claims were equally good fared very badly.

Messrs Rhodes, R. Thompson, Duthie, McLean, McGovvan, Buchanan, Moore and E. M. Smith also spoke. Sir J. HALL said the Public Works Stitemenfc of last year was also misleading. But there-was this difference, the Statement of last year was misleading because of a mistake in figures, but this year's Statement was deliberately misleading. Since the present Government took office there had been a steady increase every year of expenditure on public woikg. They heard that the Government policy was one of tapering off; it was not only tapering off, but it was continually adding on. Mr SEDDON—The late Government left us a lot of contracts. Sir J. HALL —Oh ! that was altogether too transparent. The Premier had better tell it to a young member, not to an old Parliamentarian like him. The Premier knew very well it was too late a period of tha session to make inquiry into that statement. Sir J. Hall was still speaking when the Telegraph Office closed at 2 a. in.