POLITICAL

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 107, 7 May 1909, Page 4

POLITICAL

, SIR JOSEPH WARD'S LATE 1 SPEECH. 'CRITICISM BY MR. ALLEN.. [Bt 'TE&EGEAPH — PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN, 6th May. To-day Mr.^T. Allen was interviewed regarding tho Prime Minister's Imercargill speech. Touching on finance, Mr. Allen said the speech was to him a disappointment, ' and so it must be to every person who considered tho situation. Apparently the .whole of the extra railway earnings, amounting to £83,507, had been expended,. &s the Prime Alinister stated that a saving on votes of £176,340 had been effected. This remark should be carefully noted, because, without this saving ■on appropriations, theie would practically have been no suiplus at all. It was somewhat startling to read in .the speech that the expenditure of the i Consolidated Fund for the year had mci eased by £571,000. The Prime Minister now admitted that a quarter of a million could be saved by amalgamation and economy. Thi.s was all very well, but it' that saving could be made this year, it could have been made in other years, and the meney used on roads, railways,, etc. The increase in revenue in three years by the Ward Administration was, he admitted, £1,416,826, but the increase in expenditure in the same term was £1,663,173. In 1906-7 the revenue rose by £814,000, and ,in 1907-8 by £655,000 ; but in 1908-9 there was a drop of £54,761, and in the same year the expenditure had increased by over half a million. Last year only 79 per cent, of the railway vote^and. 73 per cent, of the road vote was expended. In the current year he anticipated it would be necessary to | raise a loan greater rthan the million and a quarter of last year. Dealing with general matters, Mr. Allen said it was satisfactory, in onesense, to know that the Prime Minister; had been able to arrange for loan renewals. At the same time it was the duty of every politician to warn the constituents and the country generally that this practice of having to renew a large amount of short-dated debentures every now and then becoming due was a very hazardous one. It was well known that short-dated debentures were nearly till high interest-bearing loans, and to have renewed them at a high interest rate for longer terms than originally was not satisfactory, and was condemnatory of the .principle of short-dated debentures. It was not right that the Government should have to renew or provide for within a "period of" three years nearly eight millions of debentures, and that it should have to provide, in the current year, for another £2,613,899. With respect to native lands, it seemed hopeless to expect any improvement from the present administration. Indeed, with the known proclivities of Mr. Ngata and Mr. Carroll, and their influence in tho Cabinet, European settlement of these native lands would to a large extent be blocked. Southerners did not realise how much native land was locked up unused by natives, and becoming in some instances a menace from weeds. Two main' policy measures that the Prime Minister indicated were national annuities and land settlement finance scheme. Sir Joseph Ward might have had the latter on the Statute Book last year, for the general principle of it was approved by the Opposition. As to national annuities, the principle of sellhelp was one that the Opposition persistently advocated from the very earliest days. What he feared in respect to the Piime Minister's proposal was that it would not be on a sound financial basis. On the question of defence, the country was ripe for a change, and members had urged upon Parliament the necessity for this change, in no party spirit -whatever. Sir Joseph Ward had- the opportunity to make a change if he had the will, and it was to be hoped before Parliament came to a conclusion that something would be done to put our defence in a more satisfactory position. The volunteer system stood condemned as a system. Those who had entered it had done their duty to the country, but others had not, and the law must bring them into line.