"WELLINGTON NOTES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1372, 13 August 1895, Page 5

"WELLINGTON NOTES.

IFKOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] THE BUDGET. Mr Ward opened his Budget Speech with the following sentence:" It gives me great pleasure to be again able to congratulate the House and the country upon the satisfactory results of the year's finance." The debate upon it will not open before Tuesday night, but in the meantime Sir. Robert Stout's dictum on it is terse. " Utterly misleading? and crooked" is the language he sums up the 69. pages in which the Treasurer has followed up the favorite system adopted ;by his Government in making the worse appear the better cause. The Budget is a marvel in its and leaves the impression that the "satisfactory results" referred to are not apparent to the ordinary mind, and that the congratulations must be confined to Ministers and their toadies, who alone • have benefited by their policy, and brought the Colony into a condition never before experienced in its history. To analyse the Financial Statement of this year is riot the work of a day or a week. The figures throughout are deliberately befogged, and our position misstated \ intentionally to deceive Parliament and the country. To go into all the details is out;of the question where such a mass of figures has to be dealt with, but the, most important part of it for the public to consider is the increase of our public debt and the annual interest to be paid on it, and it is in this latter item that the Budget is entirely misleading. . Notwithstanding all the past assertions' of Ministers that we, have had surpluses year by year, that we were not borrowing, and that we were carrying on public works out of revenue, our. debt was increased last year by £560,459, and now stands at £40,386,964, and there were' also debentures outstanding on , March 31st £Blo,ooo \ and the million, a half loan has been raised since, so that we have reached the respectable figure of £42.696,964. But it- is in the interest and sinking fond charges that the TREASTTRBB'S CROOKEDNESS is most apparent. On page 5 the annual charges for'the past year are stated as £1*716,889, and on page 9 at £1,655,970, a discrepancy of which does not matter much, seeing that both of them are a long way under the truth. What the actual annual cost is will take some investigation by the Opposition. ; If Mft Ward imagines that any mamber of ihe House believes that our,interest account has decreased in the past year by £216,712, as he states, while the debt •has increased, he must hold very decided views-as to their gullibility. He shows that we are paying more than \ per cent less on our total debt, and in one of his flowery sentences he claims to have made "the position perfectly plain so that all; may at a glance understand it;" yet this discrepancy is hot explained or explain- \ able anywhere within the covers of th», Budget! After discussion with members and others, the conclusion arrived at (in the absence of necessary returns arid information) is that the juggling has been in the new method of drawings of bonds and conversions'under the Consolidated Stock Act of 1886. Probably the truth will be dragged out of Ministers before the session is over, but there is little wonder now at their unwillingness to submit returns to the House, or to allow any matters of moment to; be referred to the Public Accounts Committee; ' One fact is acknowledged—-our sinking funds whioh had accumulated to £1,486,427 at the time the present Government took office have r ndw decreased' 'to" £751,932,' andj as if to qualify this piracy of the Colony's past savings, the Treasurer had the indecency to express hopes he held of, at some future time, EXTINGUISHING; OUR DEBT by the operation of the Sinking Fund: What was really done by his predecessors he now proposes as a new departure in finance, and holds it out as a bait for fresh loans. As for works for the ensuing year, there is no provision whatever. Interest and departmental expenditure will absorb the whole of our revenue, the profits of the railways, and £145,000 of debentures already raised on this year's account. The Seddon Government has brought the Colony to this pass—it takes a sum of £4,331,843 to govern a lawabiding population of 700,000 souls, and as if that were not enough to shame them ;ihto doing something to alleviate such a state of things, we find additions made to already high salaries, more offioials ap>pointed> and outrageous extravagance going/on :where friends of Ministers, or Ministers themselves, are the beneficiaries. Members who support Government are downcast; some describe the Budget as "cleverly worded," others as "tame" and "la'me."- The outside public have not as yet had time to digest it, as the real pith is hidden under a mass of verbiage and fireworks. Its consideration has had to give way to the opinions "on OUR TARIFF REFORM, from which so much was expected and so little has enaued. Probably the most dissatisfied people in the colony on this matter are the six commissioners who nobly undertook the > mission to travel through the country at a coat of £I7OO to find out what the people wanted in the direction of higher duties or further protection. Their report was exhaustive—as to the evidence collected—and exhausting to any one venturesome euough to read it. It provided for reductions 'amounting to £IOI,OOO on certain articles,, and. additions of 32100,000 on certain others, the net result to the consumer being the difference between a three penny bit and three pennyworth of coppers. It was, of course, expected by them that their report would be read, admired, and acted upon; and on June 25th a Tariff Committee was set up in the House, but which has never been convened or held a meeting, and the Cabinet, ignoring both the commission and the commitee, brought down and passed in one hour an amended tariff, which, apart from its absurdities, is as insulting to the commission as it is regardless of the workers. It is designed to take £45,000 off some items with a view of inflicting 1i55,000 on others, and the working classes will get by far the worst of it in the change. The penny per lb. reduction on tea, and a penny per gallon on kerosene will not benefit the consumer, but the additional per centage on such an article of universal use among women and children as flannelette is a very serious thing for the poor. A working man's shirt will cost him from 9d to lOd more and be made by sweating firms at Home instead of by women in the colony, hundreds of whom will be deprived of the means of earning a decent living by an industry which has thrived for the past 14 years. Boots will cost more, and in no way advantage the manufacturer. One of the most extensive employers here who has manufactured all his stock for the past seven months, forwarded an order for LIO,OOO worth of foreign made goods as soon as the tariff was known. Some of the exemptions are ridiculous. Mutton birds and prepared calf meal being favored with free ingress. Mutton birds are delicacies only produced in Mr Ward's electorate. Calf meal may be some new kind of

nourishment for infants—the average farmer would prefer knocking a calf on the head any day to purchasing luxuries for him—even when duty free. In reducing the duty on wax matches there appears to have been a breach of faith committed with the proprietor of the recently started vesta manufactory here. He, in giving evidence before the Commission', stated that the Colonial Treasurer had assured him that, providing he established the industry in the colony no alteration would be made on the duty on matches, yet it has been reduced by half. This will cause an enterprising speculator to think twice before accepting i promises from Ministers in future.. Any one possessing courage enough to read through the Tariff Commission's long report will be struck with the i diverse opinions of witnesses on some protectionist points. The Dunedin wax match makers say they cannot use the Dunedin made stearine because it is too soft, and in attempting to make it hard enough the candle company knocked their machinery to pieces, the wax match' people therefore asked for the removal' of the duty on stearine. Another witness—the manager of the candle factory, said that, as a matter of fact, he did supply stearine to the match makers, that it was as good- as anything which could be imported, and that if the duty were taken off that it would be an injustice to his industry; and, although colonial candles are protected to the extent of 2d per lb, he desired a further concession. He said that the *'* mining candles" he manufactured were as good, if riot superior to, foreign made candies.. In this statement he into conflict with another witness, a mining manager, who has Bperit £14,000 in plant, and who also lays out some £6OOO a year in labor and material. \He says : "The colonial candle is about the worst candle I know of in the. world." Having spent a few years, of my life in underground work, I quite agree with this outspoken Otago man. Coming to another industrynail making—a so-called manufacturer in Christchurch, who employs six boys, asks that the duty on Wire nails should be increased from 2s to 7s per cwt, virtually increasing the price of an article of every day use to all but Id per lb. The same enterprising individual also poses as a fireworks' manufacturer,'; and while he acknowledged that £4 worth of gun-;; powder would make LIO worth Of; fireworks, he wanted the duty increased by 100 per cent.,, although he did nof ; seeiri to have any labor employed in this branch of his manufactory; On ; the subject of '■ , BINDER TWINE/' !.'.._ some very interesting disclosures came out, which should make fanners study their i pockets before promising their votes at the next elections. Of 1000 tons used in th« colony over 9QO tons are made from N.Z. fibre. There is no twine imported and therefore no duty necessary for protection purposes; but the duty of 15 per cent.: stops on the tariff for another purpose which will be easily'seen further on. In this colony the farmer pays 4Jd per lb for it; in yictoria the same article is sold for 2|d. It was shown-in evidence that the : fibre could be exported toNew ;York, spun there and sent to ; JSTew Zealand: again at 3|d, and that the twine could be mads and sold to farmers in the colony at that price, leaving' a profit to the makers. Another witness—a storer keeper in a large grain growing district— I gave the following \ evidence;:■ "A shipmerit of twine from the Auckland Fibre Company was sent to Sydney at 2£d per lb, and, without being unloaded in' Sydney, returned, per same s.b.: Waihora, • ,to Dunedin at 3d per lb." As' a matter of fact has not seen its way to remove this import, and as it is no secret that since Mr J. G. Ward's return, the bonds of this monopoly .have ; been; tightened, it would be absutd for farmers to shut their eyes to the fact that they, as a body, are paying many thousands a year to swell the profits of an industry requiring no fostering, and which cannot be retained on the tariff-on the plea of helping the revenue. ONBOOTS AND SHOES^ which are jumped up from the old rates of free and 15 per cent, to 25 per cent, all round, the Christchurch bootmakers went very thoroughly in to the details of the tariff requirements of what has grown into a very large industry, and the following recommendations were unanimously adopted by individuals, firms, and the Bootmakers' Union : "First, we are strongly opposed to an ad valorem tariff under present conditions; second, we did not recommend the introduction of a high fixed duty;" and they submitted a scale varying from "free" on gum boots and infants shoes to 15 per cent, on other made up goods. It was shown that the colonial made article had, in some instances, driven out the imported, and was gradually doing so in other lines, and the proportion of the boots now sold in the colony was about L 400.000 of colonial to L 140,000 of imported. A large manufacturer in Dunedin said: "We manufacture, import, and distribute; every year we are capturing a new line in our, manufacturing department." With respect, to the scale of prices, which the union fixed after .the Auckland strike, the same ,witness -said : ''.The "men were , more cruel to themselves than employers would have been." Without going further into details, it is pretty certain that the recent alterations will not pass unchallenged by the House. If the country is not to get relief from taxation aridthere is to be a revision, then the best thing to do is to SIMPLIFY THE TARIFF., • There could be at least 200 or 300 items picked out of the tariff which are confusing and irritating to importers and could be- placed under some easily distinguished headings so that experts would not be necessary to decide whether a piece of drapery was tailors' trimmings on the free list or dress material, subject to 25 per cent., as is the case now. There are a hundred other items which in some cases do not return L 5 each to the revenue, and which might with advantage be struck out altogether. That was Gladstone's plan in 1871, when he swept off the tariff all but a dozen or so of items. If this were done to the extent of LI 50,000 and in lieu thereof, another £d put on sugar no one would suffer much, if at all, by the change, for the prime cost of sugar has come down so tremendously of late years that, with the increased duty, it would not cost the consumer more than 3d per lb or half of what it did 20 years ago. And another article capable of bearing more taxation without injuring the consumer is colonial beer. It goes without saying that brewing is here, as elsewhere, a very profitable industry, and, without robbing the poor man of his beer or preaching a temperance sermon it. is very patent that those who are enjoying large profits might, without any hardship, be compelled to contribute a fair share of their large incomes towards bearing the public burden. Two breweries in Wellington share the trade between them; one of which distributed LIO,OOO among its four partners last year; the other one probably did better for its sole proprietor. If we i are to pay more taxes let ua clearly

understand what they are to be inflicted on. Free mutton birds and free lead for tea packing are blessings the average elector does not ask for or appreciate. Free binder, twine would be a very real relief to the farmer. However, the subject is a very dry and tedious one, and whatever happens in Parliament will be, as usual, settled on party lines, so here goes for the tuneful harp ':— . No w nothing can be finer or more beautiful to see; Than the way the Party votes with such unanimity. It matters not to members of the Democratic crew', What the upshot of the gamj may be. They to themselves are true. 'Twas a bitter pill to swallow when the Treasurer veered around ; But the Party laid the whitewash on ; and for Party voted sound. Still I got to be more bitter, as I think you will insist When the highly flavored mutton bird is first on the free list. So the working man feels grateful for the joys he has in store, For the free Australian vintage which will never cross his door. Then to Counterbalance what might seem to smell too strong of wine Ward put more duty on our boots but guards lm binder twine. And the culminating agony has not as yet been felt There are fat sows' ears want greasing while there's favor to be dealt: Let the Unemployed still wander and their wives and children starve The Party will be faithful till there's no more goose to carve. THE WICKED TORIES have again put their foot in it, and it came about in this way. Last year Messrs Gale and M'Lellan canvassed Wellington with a view of creating a fund to find work for the Unemployed, and succeeded so well that the Queen's drive was the outcome of it. This winter- our Liberal Government acknowledged'"that matters were worse than ever, and offered, as crumbs of comfort, more labor bills. When matters got to the soupkitchen stage, Mr Gale again came to the front, and with Mr Ross, of Sargood's, collected LSOO among business -people within an, hour or two, the money being all - the more willingly subscribed because last year's donations were so well spent. With LSOO in hand, these two canvassers the. City Council the. same evening exacted L for L, and as Govern-' merit is bound to subsidise private subscriptions with 24s per L and also give L'for hj to the Municipality, this Unemployed contribution swelled to L2IOO forthwith ,* and it all came from people of the wrong, color. The Old heathen proverb of Bis dot qui cito dot never came - in: belter, and about L7O has since been added to the private lists. The outcome will probably be a new recreation ground.