PLAIN SPEAKING

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 151, 20 March 1924, Page 6

PLAIN SPEAKING

MR. MASSEY AND THE FINANCES DEPUTATIONS’ DEMANDS CONSOLIDATED FUND NOT BOTTOMLESS Requests for £400,000 of public money by deputations yesterday morning drew sharp comment from the Prime Minister, who said that the Consolidated Fund of the country was not bottomless. “Please understand,” said Mr. Massey, to the third deputation that waited on liim before 11 a.m., “that the Consolidated Fund is not unlimited. There is a bottom to that Fund, and it I am not very careful, then, there will be no Consolidated Fund left.” “You are the third deputation which has come to me this morning, asking for large sums of money,” Mr. Massey told the deputation. “The day is not very old yet, it is only 11 o’clock now. I have one request —and it has to be complied with —for £lOO,OOO, to straighten up the Railway Superannuation Fund. There is no chance of doing anything else but meet it. We can’t allow the fund to come to grief. “I had. another request for some public works, which I don’t know whether we should have been called upon to undertake, and it amounts to £250,000. As far as I know there is not an acre of Crown land in the neighbourhood—it is all private land. “I don’t know how much your request conies to —I can’t tell. It makes me feel inclined sometimes to say, -'You had bettor get someone else to look niter the finances of the country.’ 1 can’t keep it in check. 1 never'saw anything like it. It has been a very good year, considering it has been a dry year. We have done remarkably well. We will have to go abroad for two or three million bushels of wheat; we cannot avoid it. The people must have food-stuffs and we must do it. We will get that money back right away, I am sure of that?’ “I am not going to be any party to wasting money,” declared the Prime Minister. “This country cannot afford it.”