HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Evening Sitting.

Evening Post, Volume XLVI, Issue 23, 27 July 1893, Page 4

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Evening Sitting.

TUB FINANCIAL DEBATE. Mr. SANDFORD, after conjrratulating Mr. Rolleston on his speech, said the Hon. Sir Ward was a worthy Bneee-uor of Mr. Ballance. Referring to tho dragging in of the finances of 1879, he said it had been done by the Opposition press, which endeavonred to show that the Liberal finance had always failed. This had compelled the Premier and Sir Robert Stout to defend For the introduction of the question to the House Sir John Hall was responsible. The Labour Bureau had so far been a registry office for the unemployed. It should be made free as a registry office to the employers and employed throughout the colony. He approved the increase in the Graduated Tax, and considered there should also be graduations in tho Income Tax. He considered a Minister should have a. seat on the Board of Railway Commissioners. The native lands qnestion should be grappled with, and he hoped tha Minister would provide for power to take land oompulsonly for settlement. The cooperative oontract system, he thought, would be the system of the future. Referring to the Direct Veto question, he said he claimed a free hand on this, and would not be drawn at the chariot wheels of any Government. The Government was to blame for not bringing in this meosuie itself. Mr. RHODES congratulated Mr. Sandford on his very temperate and sensible speech, free from personalities. He was pleased to welcome Mr. Ward as the lirst Colonial Treasurer educated in New Zealand, but though he admitted his ability, he was aorry he cooM not congratulate him on his first Financial Statement. It was not his work. They should not be asked to discuss tho Financial Statement withont having the Public Works Statement before them, as they were now required to code tract public wuiks out cf revenue. Should the revenue not keep np they inu->t incur liabilities. It was therefore only right that they should know for what those liabilities wore to be incurred. He objected to the taxation proposals on four grounds, xiz.— as pressing unduly on the country aa compared with tho town; us sovero on the enonmbered as compared with the unencumbered man ; its severe graduation ; and the unfair exoeption of certain companies as compared with other 3. He quoted figures freely to establish bis contentions. He supported the proposed exemption of improvements. The Opposition would assist, as far &b possible, in securing suitable legislation for the dispoial of the Cheviot estate. He thoroughly analysed the finances, with a view to snowing that the surplus was not due to the work of the year. Mr. C. H. MfLLS, after complimenting Mr. Rhodes on the excellence of his speech, expressing admiration for the Statement, and paying tribute to the loss sustained by the House through the death of tho lost tno Colonial Treasurers, advocated increased payment to Ministers. Much of the trouble with regard to the unemployed was because they were not, like tbe early settlers, content to tike the first rung of tbe ladder and climb up. After dealing with the figures of the Statement, he warmly praised the Labour Bureau, which he considered was of great value both as a source of information and a means of distribution. If the snbsidies to local bodies wore not continued, Government would have to take over tho main roads. Dr. NEWMAN, who was received with -warm applause, said he thonght they wanted some suoh rule as in the London County Council — a Parliament of 120 members, dealing with finance as large as those of New Zealand, yet there the introducer of a measure was only allowed 20 minutes, and all speakers who followed 10 minutes each. The Premier need not drag up the finance of 1879, because he knew nothing of that finance — he did not even know the finance of 1893. He resented the manner in which the Premier was dragging out the corpse of Sir Harry Atkinson to revile and abuse it. Then wherever he went he spoke, and received his -rotes of confidence and thanks, and when he was cornered about it he blamed the reporters. All the reporters had entered into a conspiracy against him. The Opposition should bring phonographs, and when tbe Premier spoke they should turn one on, and grind it in the House, to sa\e him from tho reporters. "It was interesting reading, but the plot was rather thin, and the author changed his plot too frequently." So it was with this Statement, which changed its subject rather too frequently, and must have been constructed by Ministers on the co-operative system. It was a thing of patohwork, full of inaccuracies. These he proceeded to show, quoting largely from the figures^ Thero was a Doctor of .Divinity who said " politics were not tho work of saints," and after reading this Statement, and hearing the Premier upon it, he was more than ever disposed to believe it. If there was one financial blunder in the colony more than auother it •was the way the conversion operations were carried ont. (Hear, hear, from Mr. launders.) It was the first canon in the law of conversion that it should ba at par and at a lower rate of interest; yet they had the champion blunder of the world in the conversions by the Ministry at 113. None of the great authorities would for a moment tolerate this. The debt of this colony had been inoreased by £2,000,000 for conversions. Mr. Goschen had converted £586,000,000 with practically no increase to tho debt. New Zealand, in converting a paltry £400,000, had increased it by £20,000. In hngland that had actually crystallised the axiom into an act —that no conversion should increAsa tbe original debt. The arrangements of the colony with the Bank of England were as antiquated and disadvantageous as the arrangements with the Bank of New Zealand had been. It was time they were changed. The Government, instead of tapering oft' expenditure as it had boasted, had expended £532,161 inbtead of £472,000 during tho year. They had introduced tho principle of the spoils for the victors, for they had to bringdown political hawks, and you couldn't do that with empty hands. Government members had been going round tho country travelling on the claim that tho v had reduced the debt of the colony. If they had a Government who could spend half a million in public works and yet reduce the public debt they BUould carefully preserve it, for no other set of men could possibly do it. Those Government supporters who went round the country boasting of this alleged reduction of tho public debt reminded him of the story that an Opposition member had gone down to Hades, and been shown round by Satan the various crowds of people all burning, until they came to a lot of people stacked up, and not burning. The Opposition member asked what were these? ' Oh," •aid tbe devil, " that's a stack of Government members. We put them there because they are top green to burn jnat now." Then this Government were always boasting of being a non-borrowing Government, yet they were borrowing from sinking funds, on Treasury bills, for hind for settlement, roods to open Crown lands, to buy Maori lands, to settle old soldiers' ulaimß, to convert loans, and now they were going to borrow for the Midland Railway and for other things. Instead of a policy of tapering off, wo bad introduced a policy of bulging out. We were tapering off on all the good things, and bulging out on the wrong ones. While they claimed reduction of debt they were asking for £80,000 a year more per annum to pay interest on loans. The Government polioy this year was a vamped up one. It was like a travelling circus in desperate circumstances, whioh strove to conceal its desperate circumstances by glaring placards, and which worked up the old tricks and gave new nameß to draw the public. Their Bills for this session were old Bills re touched. It was like a newspaper of the " right colour " once published in this province, which had found difficulty about a second issue, and so re-issued the first with a new date. The policy in other directions was a policy of desperate dawdling— take for instance the dawdling ovar the railways, over that piece of line between fiketabuna and Woodville. After treating of other items of Government polioT, the speaker referred to the manner in which Government members attaoked the Opposition. Whenever they had a quarter of an hour to spare they " went for " the Opposition. Yet the Party in opposition had given them all their great reforms. They had given 'them village settlements, the land policy, Manhood Suffrage, the Public Works Polioy, Government Insurance, and co forth, and if Sir Harry Atkinson had had his way lie would have given them the scheme of old Age pension* or national insurance. What had the Government Party to show to compare with this? In oonclnsion, the speaker ■aid it was the duty of a Government to scatter plenty over a smiling land, and the Government had not oarried out that policy. (Applause.) Mr. J. W. KELLY followed. After referring to other matters of policy, he said ho would support the proposed disposition of the Oheviot Estate. He commended the working of the Agricultural Department as he saw it in Southland. Mr. SBEBA moved the adjournment of debate, and tha House rose at 1 25 a.m.