PREMIER'S NORTHERN TOUR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1038, 30 January 1911, Page 6

PREMIER'S NORTHERN TOUR.

SPEECHAT- AUCKLAND^ -THE COMMISSIONERSHIP OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC. MORE ABOUT" THE BIG LOAN, . '■ (By Telegraph—Press Association.) Auckland, January 29. ■f. The Prime Minister,- who arrived in .Ati6kland from Now Plymouth yesterday, addressed a largely attended public meeting at Devonport .last evening. Tho Mayor of the borough (Mr. W. Handley) presided. The first subject touched upon by Sir Joseph Ward was a suggestion from New South Wales concerning' the . jjassible removal of the High Commissionship of tho Western Pacific, to Australia. In proximity to tho Common-', woalth arid New Zealand wero dotted a 'xiumber of»islands, tho'future of which no one,could foresee. New Zealand possessed a number,of these islands. When it was suggested they should..be joined io; New Zealand a great maiiy people cdtild hot realise the. iniportance.of their attachment, and many looked upon it as unnecessary for New Zealand' to extend her territory.- No one could tell what tfte, future of these islands - would be, some of which lay very close to New Zealand. Some of the more important of .theso.islands desired to maintain their independence; and rule, as exercised in respect of Crown colonics, brought about neutrality of position'so far as any other country was concerned. New Zealand had never sho.wn any.envy towards- Australia, .but -it' would "bo as. reasonable to suggest that the High. Comzriissionership should be transferred to Auckland as to Sydney. He (Sir Joseph Ward) put ;on record the dissent of this country-from, .any proposal of the kind..

Recent Legislation. . ' Amongst the : valuable measures of last session was th<v National Provident Fund, which made provision for persons, 1 and issistance to . maternity. If that piece of' legislation had taken eight or ten weeks, it woukl ■ havo been a fine piece Df .work. What other oountry had made provision to allow .a . man to obtain a home already built oil the initial pay'nient of jßiffiv' Under the Lands Settlewent' Finance* Act .an; association of men . could be formed, and they could purchase land'up to a certain value, and the 'Government 'would give .a'.debenture to . tho owner. .Under this Act nine f-ssocia-. :tibns had purchased land of a .value .of \.6yer,".£100,000, and. other transactions : 'were'iin course of completion. The value of ; lands and. improvements .had riseu from ■ .£138,000,00 • ten years ago to <£270,- -■ 000,000. ' Some of his pessimistic friends said ho .was' too optimistic. Ho would : sooner be' an optimist than n pessimist any day,' for one good reason that if one had a little, bit of optimism the odds i were that one would live five years or ten years longer than a pessimist. A little of. the doctrine of, optimism might bo permeated into tho hard-cased, almost uiireceivable natures of those who would never.admit, that there was anything Rood, in the State />f .Denmark. Continuing to speak of the general prosperity of the Dominion, Sir Joseph Ward .said it was -not so long ago that we heard people in '.New Zealand crying, that people were fieoing from New Zealand.

: , ■ Movement of Population. If. a few extra people' went away by a jjcamer, it was . cabled through to tlio press.in' Australia that people wero flee-, ing the country, and that ; capital was being driven away. The pessimistic doctrine, of that time .was that we- were going as fast as wo could to that glorious place.;known -. as >'• "the dogs." The number 'of oversea passengers frr the three :months' : ending December iast : .was 6300, ! as ,4SOO for tho same period of' thjs' previous year. There must .ho, fluctuations in such figures, and in .our' finances, but we should get out'of the bad''habit. . of attributing , fluctuations, 1)0 easily;-.traced, "to the Government of the, day. , .In attributing it to;, tho Government they were putting it on the people, for tho Government was tho custodian of the people. Fluctuations were inevitable owing to the law of supply and demand, and other causes beyond control, and this should bo readjusted. Some of thoso who. differed from him said there was a lack of confidence,, and that our industries wero not expanding sufficiently. It was incorrect ..to; say that a .large portion of the money lying, on deposit- was idle, -and- when he heard this attributed to; want of confidence he wondered why some people had hot. more donfidence in the country where they had- made their money. •'ln time of depression some men who had made their money in New Zealand; sent their , money out of New) Zealand, and then advertised it. ; Queensland . was quoted till it made one feel sick. In one caso a sum_ of money was sent out of New Zealand to. purchaso land in Australia, and money was no sooner available than the recipient cabled to him (Sir Joseph Ward) asking if he could havo New Zealand bonds for it. Ho closcd on the offer like a~shot (laughter),-and used the money to assist ..settlement, in this country. If there was anything in. tho argument used in the past that- population was leaving New Zealand, what, was to'.-be thought of. the. fact .that !not one of the Australian States had made, such a large percentage gain during tho past few years., New. Zealand was prosperous, but, there was : nothing, in the nature of a,boom.

..Ho referred to tho naval policy of. New Zealand and said that in. deciding to throw in our lot with old. Britain instead of having a separate squadron of our own we wero taking tho wisest course. . ■ ' . The Five-million Loan. Sir Joseph Ward then went on to speak of: tho criticism of Mr. Massey regarding the five-million loan. He referred to a . sub-leader that had appeared in that morning's 'Ulerald". in .which it was sought to bo shown, that ho, had misre.presented, the Leader, of tho Opposition in regard to tho recent five-million loan. Hp said he never attempted', to misrepresent the Leader of the Opposition or any''* other man. It was a thing lis would riot do intentionally. The Leader of the Opposition, in an interview published on January 21 said: "If I am right; even approximately,- then our loan money is costing us too much, and the credit is not so satisfactory as in a good country like this it ought to. be, and there is not the - slightest doubt' that the- issue of the loan has affected our credit." Tho Leader of the Opposition had referred to statements in the English ■ papers. He (the Prime Minister) had a ..number of .quotations from -British papers and not one of them showed that any paper or any financier in England had in connection with tho five-million loan questioned the credit of Now Zealand. Most of the men who had underwritten the loan were men of long experience, and who fully understood their business. They, had guaranteed the loan in. return for a payment of one per cent, and he did not suppose that the Leader of the Opposition or any sane man could suggest that they could have done this had they had.the least doubt about the credit of the country. As to the" timo when the loan was placed on the market the Government had to be guided by their advisers, but "it' was noteworthy that it had been BO successfully raised although it had been placed before the public just after the announcement of the fact that tho conference on tho constitutional question had boon futile, and that a general election must tako place in Great Britain. The Government, however, had sccured a guarantee of tho whole 1 of the money before'thnt announcement was made. They ought not to play tho game of talking about the country being financially weak. If such a tiling were true the fact of talking about it would soon be , used against' them. Much had been ■ made of tho fact that the loan had been floated at a discount, viz., .£9B 10s. Money, however, could not be got except at a discount, and tho men who criticised thenj for not' doing bettef reminded one of those who, when they were asked to do anything important, could only perspire, fret, and fume, wrap a wet towel round their heads, and telephone to their wives ' to send the ambulance along. (Laughter.) Tho men who underwrote our loan wero men of tho greatest possible experience, and yet wo had men in this country who knew nothing about it criticising and condemning, but without being ahln to wi

them hoiv to improve upon the methods adopted. Tho l'rimo Minister repeated : that portion of. his Stratford speech in jwhich he stated that'a number of other ■British countries had recently raised loans of which the underwriters liad to tako a much larger proportion than in the cas« of the New. Zealand ioan, although these other loans had been--raised on terms which gave li wider margin of profit to tho investors. He also stated again that, although the underwriters had retained about half of the New Zealand loan, they were holding it voluntarily for their own investment purposes. This meant that ,had- these people not come in as underwriters they would have had to go; on' tho. market for nearly oue-half of tho loan.

Question of Responsibility, Reverting to the criticisms of the raising of tho-loan, lie said that tho only logical inference 'to be deduced from these criticisms was that tho amount of the loan was too large, lie wasquito prepared to take his of the responsibility for the • raising of the loan, but his critics must.,do the same. With the single exception of the waterpower portion, every item of tho loan hod been voted for by every member of the Opposition. >If men after voting for the loan which was required for public purjwses made statements bearing the inference that'-the'mohfey should not have been borrowed, they were really only condemning, their own actions. What was the good of constantly, crying "peccavi," and suggesting that wo wero borrowing too much money? In New Zealand torday .were had not .finished making our railways by thousands of miles. Those who had railways to their doors might be content, but what about the thousands ; of.' men and women in such places as the far north and the • interior of tho North Island, who were eking out a bare existence without such advantages-in regard to means of transports WhatMrero we. putting all these people on tho land for? What wero people crying out for more land (including jthe opening up of tho Native lands),.for,"if it;was not with tho understanding * that-thousands of more miles of railways had to be constructed to give access to these portions of the country? Bid they know that Canada, a country -that was so often quoted against us, had borrowed more money for one railway than the whole of the National J)ebt of New Zealand?

Development of tho Country. Howent on to say that every year, for several years past, and particularly since he .had been Prime Minister, they had had deputations from all parts' of the country going to Wellington every year, and asking through.their representatives for very large grants for railways, roads, bridges, and tho one hundred and one little things that wore required for tho development of the country. Witli the exception of two members of the House, who had asked for comparatively little, there was not a man in tho House who .had not asked for a great deal . more .than it was possiblo to give them. l If he were to state the total- amount asked for in comparison to tho sum available it would absolutely stagger them. Thcso people, ■ however, never expected to get all they asked / for. (Laughter.). The sums applied for amounted in the aggregate to millions more than was available. Such things as schools, roads, and bridges, and telephones for the backblocks were . necessary for tho progress of settlement. Supposing Parliament stopped making provision for all these works what would happen? Within two or three months half the business people in the country would bo insolvent, and two-thirds of the men now in employment would bo out, of work. Within the next few years four of the Australian States were proposing to borrow about seventeen millions of money for development purposes', and if we stopped our public works policy in New Zealand, the bone and sinew of our country would bo drawn to tho other side, not in thousands but in tens of thousands. During tho next fifteen years tho country would have to spend twenty, millions or thereabouts. Although some people complained of borrowing, ho would venture to say that had we allowed private companies to' construct our railways We would have 7000 miles of line instead'of 3000. When dealing with public money, however, wo must live within'.our means. .

On tho whole,-New Zealand was not doing so badly;:, soiid the' Prime Minister in conclusion, after ho, had, consulted tho clock. It was doing very well. Lot them judge by results, let thtm ask themselves whether they would prefer to livo outside of New Zealand as a matter of choice. People had left tho Dominion to return to the Old Land for good, and twclvo months or so afterwards thero was an announcement in tho papers that Mr. and Mrs. So and- So had returned to livo in this country. One asked them why, and they said that out here' there was freedom by comparison, with, tho Old, Land. Those traditions that $o. sharply marked grades of society were on the wholo .nonexistent out hero. They' said that lifo, compared with that of people in similar conditions .in the Old Country, was'superior in every way,, so one found that many who: had given a practical trial to living out of New Zealand come back. Distant fields looked green, of course, but one should realise that the fields of Now Zealand were greener than tho gTcen fields far away. (Applause.)

The following resolution was then carried almost unanimously: "That this meeting accord to Sir Joseph- Ward a hearty vote of thanks for his able and interesting address, and express continued confidence in the Liberal Government in which ho is tho distinguished. .head." Cheers were given for the Primo r Minister.