Evening Post. THURSDAT, SEPTEMBER 10, 1896. ADVANCES TO SETTLERS.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 93, 10 September 1896, Page 4

Evening Post. THURSDAT, SEPTEMBER 10, 1896. ADVANCES TO SETTLERS.

The Loan Bill was not the only measure <o n-Mch the Legislative Council on 'lu^ay showed an antipathy, begotten largely of suspicion as to the motives of the Ministry of the day. The members spoke in terms of such Revere criticism of the Government Advances to Settlers Act Amendment Bill that it became evident that when it comes out of Committee it will be a thing of "shreds and patches," and quite unrecognisable by its own parents. Had it not been that it contains some machinery clauses for the better working of the Lending Board, it would not have passed the second reading. The cause of this is not far to seek. The lending of money to settlers has not been a success — whether (as the Minister for Lands seemed to think some time ago) because of the red-tape conditions surrounding it or not makes no difference. This Bill, as both the Hon. E. C. J. Stevens and the Hon. Downie Stewakt expressed it, is one "to get rid of money, and not for the assistance of settlers," as was the Act ol 1894. It is also a, measure to extend the advances to suburban land used for residential or manufacturing purposes, the advances to go as far as half the value ; and on this point Mr. Stevens was very pronounced. He prophesied disaster to the colony if such securities were taken for public money, and a speedy end to the Lending Board. Not only has it this objectionable feature, but it so far departs from the original Act that it would increase the maximum from £2500 to £4000, which Mr. Montgomery condemned, as indeed he did almost all the provisions of the Bill, in a manner somewhat similar to the attack he hnd just previously made on the Loan Bill. Perhaps the most astonishing feature of the debate, however, was Mr. Montgomery's admission thai "to say that the rate of interest has been reduced by the legislation of 1894 was, as business men knew well, untrue." Shades of ex-Treasurer Wabd defend us ! Can it be that a gentleman of the known probity of character and high political standing of the Hon. Mr. Montgomery is mistaken, and that the Hon. Messrs. R. J. Seddon and J. G. Ward,

who were his colleagues in 1894, and, in •fact, till after the session of 1895, when he voluntarily resigned office, are right? We prefer Mr. Montgomery's version, because he, at any rate, has a clean record so far as not deceiving the public goes, and. would not so definitely assert his opinion did be not know — as an ex-Minister of the Crown, and one who therefore spoke with authority — what he was talking about. Yet, if we have not lower rates of interest in consequence, what benefit has the colony received from Mr. Wabd's trip Home, and the creation of an expensive Department with at least one nice fat office for a Government supporter ?