THE PUBLIC REVENUES ACT.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 119, 15 November 1902, Page 2

THE PUBLIC REVENUES ACT.

Mr. A. R. Atkinson addressed a meet- 1 ing last night at the Mount Cook Boys' School, with Mr. A. Graff in the chair, and dealt at length with the latest defence of the Public Revenues Act, 1900. { Adopting Dr. Findlay's sporting metaphor, he said that the latter was a very promising colt who had started well, : and was backed by his friends for a place, but, unfortunately, just as he was rounding the corner into the straight he jibbed, stumbled and fell, unable to resist the temptation of a couple of fascinating mare's nests which he discovered on the course. Dropping metaphor, Mr. Atkinson said that the mare's nests were the astonishing discoveries which Dr. Findlay had* made with regard to the Public Revenues Amendment Act. The* first was that section 3, which enabled a vote upon, the Estimates to override statute law, was not responsible for "the £40 steal," and that " the steal " could have been worked -without it. The reason given was that " there is nothing in the Payment of Members Act, 1892, to forbid it." The Act said £240 shall be paid to members as salary, but it did not say " and -no more," and, therefore, members could at any time have voted themselves another £40- or another £400 if they pleased. A more puerile contention was never urged. The fact was that no payment of salary was lawful beyond what the Act made lawful, and no negative words were necessary ; and if the £40 had been voted before section 3 of the Public Revenues Act, 1900, was passed, the Auditor-General could and would have struck it out. It was always well for an advocate to know before he went into Court what his client had been saying outside.; and if Dr. Findlay had taken that precaution in the present instance, he would have been saved from this egregious blunder. Not only had Mr. Seddon admitted that the law was not as his advocate now alleged it to have been, but he had urged this as the very reason for passing the clause. "As, to clause 3," said the Premier, j in moving tho second reading of the ! Bill, "the necessity for this arises from the fact that after this House has oarefully and solemnly debated a vote and passed a, sum of money, knowing at the time of passing it it was additional to the amount fixed by law, it had been held by the Conj troller and Auditor-General that you | could not pay the money. . The money I the House passed has been refused. I will take a case an point just to illustrate. 4 Suppose, for instance, this session, the 1 education capitation grant being £3 15s, according to law, the House on the Supplementary Esti- ' mates passed an additional ss, the Auditor-General .would hold that extra 5s could nofc be paid." [ This capitation money was in precisely the same position as members' salaries, the sum being fixed by law, without any negative words of limitation. This was a hypothetical case ; but to the Public Account's Committee, a* Mr. Pirani informed the House, the Premier had mentioned ah actual case — viz., that " £500 had been voted to Judge Edwards as a Judge of the Arbitration Court, but that the audit had refused to pass that ,£SOO because the Supreme Court Act provided a fixed salary for Judges of the Supreme Court, and without an amendment of that Act no additional amount could be paid to any Judge." Now, there were none of the limiting words in the Supreme Court Act wliich were necessary, according to Dr. Find- \ lay's contention, to make this extra payment illegal ; there was nothing about £7500 for the puisne Jtidges, ",and no more." The analogy to the case of members' salaries was, therefore, complete ; and' it *was as plain as daylight that upon the. law as it stood Before clause j 5 was passed, and upon the law as acted upon by the Auditor-General 1 and accepted by the Government and its advisers, that £40 could not have been legally voted. | As to section 4i which authorised the transfer of the moneys voted for one item to any other item, in the same class, Dr. Findlay was discreetly silent ; and ifc might surely be assumed that a provision which even he had not the hardihood to defend was indefensibly. With regard to section 9, the Government's advocate had made a great display by citing at length sections from repealed Acts of 1872 and 187-8 bearing more or less close analogy to the new section ; but they were no new discovery. % In the" debate on the second reading, Mr. Pirani had referred to them aH, and had pointed out that the io/2 section was repealed j on the motion of Mr. Ballance, with the ! approval of Major Atkinson. Those two | high authorities on finance considered that ] the section gave improper powers to the | Treasxiry, and these improper powers were now restored and much augmented by section 9. The old section dealt with expenditure only ; section 53 of the 1891 Act, following that of 1878, only I applied to disputes as to whether or not charges were according to law ; but ! section 9 of the Act of 1900 covered the whole field of administration and expressly included credits as well as debits. There, again, the Premier had completely given away his advocate, who contended that the Act of 1891 gave all the necessary power, and that the new section 9 was apparently mere surplusage. The Premier said of clause 9 of the Bill— "That is a question as to who shall decide what shall be the proper head to charge revenue to. As the law stands now, it brings the AuditorGeneral on the verge of interfering with the administration. There should be no ground whatever for conflict in respect of what is purely a question of administration." The Premier saw clearly the enormously increased powers he was getting under clause 9 ; and tho result of it was that he could now pay into any account any revonuo from any source, nnd the Audit Oilico could not interfere. So monstrous a power was without precedent in our legislation, and when Dr. Findlay realised the position, ho would hardly repeat his astounding assertion, thftt section 9 "had practically been in existence for thirty years." % Yet, as his final argument amounted to this— that any Government that was tit to govern tho country wns lit to audit itself, it was not to be supposed that oven tho discovery of what flection 9 really meant would induce him to throw up Ins brief. On the motion of Mr. Matthews, seconded by Mr. Morns', « voto of thanks was given l<> (»«? candidate.

A sensational incident is reported from White Cliff* (N.»S*Wv)» whore an alleged wife-beater was mobW. \U was partly hanged down « miner's shuft, and then dropped to the bottom nnd left there all night. In the morning the police wero acquainted with wlint had happened, and proceeding to the shaft hauled the man out. ,