The Press. MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 1895. THE FINANCIAL DEBATE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9181, 12 August 1895, Page 4

The Press. MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 1895. THE FINANCIAL DEBATE.

__• the debate on the Financial State- ' meat has produced nothing very new and startling it has served to crystallise one ->r two important facts, to which we ha,ve already drawn attention, and which it is important that the public should know. There- are also not wanting signs that some of the Ministry's erstwhile staunchest supporters are. disgusted at the way in which the Cabinet have thrown over the professions with which they entered office. Indeed, so far from keeping faith with those who voted for them, by acting up to the professions they then avowed, the Government have now . got to the length of denying that such -*>ron_ises were ever made at all. The _£.n. J- M 4 E_n_eb on Friday night said, -bat the Government nevei claimed to be a non-borrowing Governiroent. We have xm doubt that, in 1 "- view of the huge indebtedness to 1 which they have already com- ! nutted the colony, and the addir tioes; 10-ming in the future tl«?j I feel ashamed of their pretensions i_

t tbe past as to their being a nonI borrowing Ministry, but as to their ] having put; forward those pretensions i over and over again, the fact is so fresh in the public mind that we wonder they have the impudence to deny it. However, they have at last thrown off the mask and stand before the electors in their true colours. The i country now knows, out of Ministers' own mouths, that if it wants a policy of reta-enchment and non-borrowing to be carried out, it is of no use to look to the present Ministry to undertake the work. Probably the most notable incident in Friday night's debate was the trouncing given to the Budget by Mr. G-. \V. Russell, the member for Riccarton, who has at length discovered that the great "Liberal" gods he has delighted to honour in the past are false gods, with faces it may be of brass and feet of clay. We agree with him that what we want in this colony is "a reduction in our " expenditure and prudent adminis- -- tration such as business men " would adopt in the present state •' of things." We also agree with him that the Financial Statement with its proposed increases of salary to highly paid officers, its vote for the -Vancouver mail service, and other extravagances, breathes a policy of squandering in every line of it, and makes absolutely no pretence at economy. When Mr. Russell goes on, however, to advocate raising half-a-million of money for opening up coal mines to find employment for our people, another half-million for establishing village settlements, an indefinite sum for old age pensions, and other large and airy schemes of this kind, we are constrained to part company with the honourable gentleman. We fail to recognise in these proposals any evidence either of the ••' reduction in our expenditure " or of the "prudent administration" which Mr. Russell had just laid down as being so highly desirable. We doubt if there is any country in the world rich enough to go in for such schemes as these, and certainly New Zealand is not in a position to do so just now. More to . the point, we think, was the very forcible speech by Mr. Buick, which carries additional weight from the fact that he, like Mr. Russell, was returned as a supporter of the present Ministry, but finds that they have proved traitors to their " Liberal" professions. Mr. Buick enforces the doctrine which we have laid down in these columns, that the successful Colonial Treasurer, especially at times like the present, is one who lightens the burdens of the people instead of adding to them, and that tried by this test Mr. Ward comes out as a shocking example of what a Colonial Treasurer ought not to be. Mr. Buick realises that the bulk of the new taxation will fall directly on the shoulders of the working men, and he very properly urges that there should not be a single increase of duty on goods used by the working classes until all reasonable reductions in the present expenditure had been made. This is a line of action which working clas3 electors everywhere should insist on being carried out. Before long we hope,they will go a step further, and realise that hot only is that taxation bad for them whicli increases the price of the goods they especially use, but that increased taxation of every kind causes direct injury to their best interests, inasmuch as it throttles enterprise and chokes the springs of industry at the very source, and thus diminishes employment and lowers wages. The policy of economy and retrenchment is pre-eminently the policy likely to result in the welfare of the working classes of the colony. Captain Russell's speech on Friday • was temperately expressed and constitutes a serious indictment of the Ministry. He showed very clearly » how the Government are dragging this unfortunate country over • head and ears into a morass of debt. He also showed that the condition of 1 the colony, instead of exhibiting any 1 evidence of progress, really gives cause for concern. We ourselves, ■ when the Budget was brought ' down, pointed out that the only increases of revenue occurred in what may be termed penal taxation, such as stamps, but that railways and Customs —the real index of the trade and commerce of the country—showed a serious falling off. The figures we quoted merely stated the decline as 1 compared with the Treasurer's estimate. Captain Russell compares the actual receipts last year with those of the ' actual receipts of the year before, and I shows that the falling off is still more ' serious when viewed from this aspect. The Customs revenue, for instance, was £85,000 less, and the railway revenue £22,799 less, making together j a falling off on these two great trade » departments of revenue of no les3 than i £108,000. The man who can see any t cause for congratulation here must 1 have a strange notion as to what > indicates a country's prosperity or the » reverse.