The Press Friday, September 7, 1923. Debt Extinction.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17862, 7 September 1923, Page 8

The Press Friday, September 7, 1923. Debt Extinction.

Our article upon the Eepaymcnt of the Public Debt Bill has brought from tho local Opposition, newspaper a renewal of its charge that tlio Government has been guilty of "a breach of faith" in destroying the machinery for reducing and ultimately extinguishing the public debt. That, the Opposition paper says, is exactly what the Bill does propose. It goes even further, and eaya that the Bill is a swindle: ' 'lt does not, to be candid, Jook to "us like an honest proposition." "Mr "Massey," it adds, '.'proposes to eul"lar the sinkings [sinking funds] in "respect of ordinary debt which have "been accumulating for over twenty "years, and the war loan sinking " funds also. He proposes to stop pay-' "ing into these funds, to destroy their "fructification, and to 'use them for " revenue purposes." Filially, he proposes to "sweep away the machinery "for extinguishing .the public debt." Hardly one of these various statements but is untrue directly or by implication, and we are at a, loss to know why anyone should go out of his - way to affirm what is demonstrably incorrect. The Opposition paper seeks to persuade its readers that while there is at the present time some debt-extinguishing machinery Mr Massey has docided to scrap it and put nothing in its place, and to use the existing .sinking funds "for revenue purposes." Even without 'knowing anything at all the Bill, any rational man would hesitate to believe that any Government would bo guilty of such a lunatie design, but that is not a consideration- which is 'likely to weigh with Opposition critics. The Government does not propose to abolish dobt-Qxtinction machinery, it does not propose to collar the sinking funds, it does not propose to "destroy "their fructification," and it does not propose to 'use them for revenue purposes. What it proposes is to replace the existing machinery by fresh machinery which will lead to the extinction of the main part of the debt, according to the Treasury's calculations, fifteen years sooner than it would be extinguished under the existing law. That the Opposition paper has not troubled to study the Bill is made clear,, by its calculation that all that the Bill amounts to is that the Government intends to steal j£1,050,000 o£ <lebt-ex-tinotion moneyb from the sinking funds and elsewhere and is to pay only a little more towards debt extinction than it does at present —in other words, that the Government proposes not only to abolish all debt-extinction provisions but to steal a balaD.no of twe or three hundred thousand pounds to assist current revenue. If this wero what the Government proposed, or anything like it, it would bo far more reasonable, instead of talking of dishonesty and breach of faith, to say simply, as we should say in such a case, that the Cabinet had gone insane in a body. Of course the Opposition paper's criticism haa no kind'of basis in fact. The Bill will be the better for criticism —it was in order that those who are interested in public finance may study it that it has been circulated so long in advance of Parliament's meeting next year—but it would appear that we need not look to the Liberals for fair or useful comment at aIL