THE BUDGET DEBATE

Evening Star, Issue 18057, 26 August 1922, Page 3

THE BUDGET DEBATE

The -contributors to tho debate on the Financial Statement yesterday numbered seven, including one Minister. Mr M‘Combs (Lyttelton) was the first speaker. He condemned the Government's action in putting men off urgent public works, declaring that it was deliberately planned to force down wages. These works had been delayed during the war years, and although the Ministers pleaded lack cf money, tho speaker contended that they had ample power to transfer money from the Consolidated Fund to tho Public Works Account. If not, then Parliament could have been called together _ for tho purpose, thus saving many men from unemployment and tlxe families from hard--ship. . Mr A. Harris (Waitemata), defending the Government’s policy regarding unemployment, pointed out that the Public Works Department to-day was employing 7,200 men, whereas the normal number was only about 2,000. Mr Savage (Auckland West), supporting Mr Holland’s traversed the Government's financial, policy. He compared it with the policy of the Labor Party as laid down in the published platform. Touching on unemployment, Mr Savage said it was a very urgent question, not a bogy, as someone described it. Charitable Institutions knew only too well the hardships of tho very poor, who came- to them for aid. If, as the Prime Minister stated at Foxton, we are round tho corner, it ought to be possible to find money to deal with the unemployment problem. The Minister of Education (the Eon. C. J. Pare), replying to Mr Wilford’s allegation that the Auditor-General had reported a. huge deficiency in the Education Department’s stores, declared that tho loader of the Opposition had drawn on his imagination. The Minister said he had interviewed the Auditor-General., who disclaimed any suggestion reflecting on the Education Department. As a matter of fact, there was no deficiency. The Prime Minister anticipated that the reserve funds at tins, end of the current financial year would total £4,347,000, a substantial reduction from the £7,000,000 in hand twelve months ago. The Labor Party proposed that the reserve funds now in hand should be used up to relievp unemployment. Was it not bettor statesmanship to visualise the conditions likely to prevail in tho years to come, and prepare the way accordingly? The situation_ regarding unemployment in the dominion had been greatly exaggerated. The total number of men registered as unemployed at the Government offices throughout the dominion was 1,351. He was glad to say that the position was scarcely any worse than in normal years. Ho felt sure that a large number of tho men on the books were unemployable. Tho Labor Party would have the country believe that a few hundred men out of work created a problem sufficiently serious to justify an onslaught on the country’s reserve funds. Discussing Mr Holland’s criticism of naval defence, ho said that on this subject the leader of the Labor_ Party was quite unsound. Mr Holland: You arc all sound. (Laughter.) Wo only objected to money on an obsolete ship such as the Chatham.

Continuing, the Minister said that on the subject of military defence Mr Holland evidently would have _ nono at all. Discussing the land manifesto of tho Labor Baity, Mr Parr ridiculed it as inimical to the interests of tho settler. After pointing out that those who to-day were making most noise about tho 4jr per cent, tax; freo bonds were those who most vigorously supported the proposal when it was made by Sir Joseph Ward, heproceeded to deal with education, concerning which lie declared that it was utterly impossible_ to further reduce the expenditure unless free education in the secondary and technical schools was abolished, Mr Sullivan (Avon) said it was amazing to find that tho Government had allowed tho unemployed problem to grow to such magnitude while it had such a large sum of money at its command to relieve it. Such conduct was cruel and callous, the Minister of Education had said it was improper to uso tho cash balances foi such a purpose as relief of the unemployed —though last year he said exactly _ tho opposite—but ho (Mr Sullivan) maintained that, when women and children were m want of the necessaries of life, those balances could not bo put to a better puipose than for their relief. With the m°ans to alleviate it, tho Government had no right to permit the poverty and destitution so rampant through tho country. Previous Govern nents had made it a practice to transfer surpluses to the Public Works Funds. If that had been done this year Canterbury might have had its unemployed problem solved by putting in hand Mr Hilcy’s scheme of railway improvement, including the duplication of tho Lyttelton tunnel, which would have provided work for all and give the province reasonable communication between the port and the plains. Mr Rhodes (Thames) said there was no ginger in the Labor Party s attack on the Government, and he could not describe it as other than a sham tight, in which a great deal of blank cartridge was being tired. He deprecated the Labor Party’s theory that further taxation could be imposed on tho higher incomes, and said that tho real salvation of the country lay in the watchword of the Budget—viz., “ Economy.” Mr Munro (Dunedin Korth) said Labor had moved an amendment for the purpose of drawing pointed attention to the fact that, while tho Government had a largo surplus it permitted unemployment to exist. Tho Government had deliberately engineered tho unemployment problem by continuing immigration for the purpose of making an attack on the workers’ wages. Tho Government were tho greatest confiscators in tho country. The shortage of houses was only another raid upon the wages of tho people, who were being exploited at every turn. Housing was just as much a war problem as the prices of the farmers’ produce, and should have been dealt with as such. Dealing with the railways, ho maintained that the best way to make them pay was not to reduce tho workers’ wages, but to reduce the fares so ns to induce people to (ravel as much as possible. At present the railways wore closed to vast ifumbors of people, because the railways were not iming run on business lines. _ The debate was adjourned on the motion of Mr Burnett, and tho House rose at 11.10 p.m. till Tuesday afternoon.