ACCUMULATED SURPLUSES.

Evening Star, Issue 18263, 1 May 1923, Page 4

ACCUMULATED SURPLUSES.

The long-range duel between Mr Massey and Mr Holland on national finance hair been of some use. Mr Holland admitted at "Westport last night that tho accumulated surpluses do not exist in liquid form. He at last concedes that the bulk of this money is locked up in soldier settlement lands. He has been a long time in arriving at this conclusion, and it would be well for his supporters in and out of Parliament to make a mental note of it. Those accumulated surpluses have figured in innumerable Labor speeches. Tho obvious intention was to create the impression that if only he had the will Mr Massev had the means to make life much easier for the masses. By dipping into this allegedly well-filled stocking ho could (for a time) maintain the wages of the lower-paid members qf the Public Service at peak levels, make big remissions of taxation to the workers in outside employment, and create work for the unemployed by enlarging the programme of public works construction. This argument was produced on so many occasions, and shouted with such emphasis, that in many quarters it came to be accepted with imnlicit belief. Now Mr Holland declares that he knew all along that there was no well-filled stocking, or that, if there had ever been one, it had long since been depleted to fulfil a war-time pledge of the most .solemn kind.

Mr Holland has shifted ground mo.st cleverly. He save that, he knows his past insistent demand for tho declaration of a dividend among tho workers cannot be

complied with because tho money has already been invested. But ho then goes on to declare that it has been so badly invested that half of it exists only on paper, and should therefore he written off. Land was bought for soldiers by tho Government at boom prices. Instead of the soldier settlement scheme being a national achievement to be regarded with pride as the beneficent fulfilment of a high-sounding promise, it has been a bone of contention to tho community and a source of endless worry to the Government. To many of tho settlers it has been a bitter struggle, in some cases too one-sided for continuance. Tho vendors of tho land are the only parties in the business who can review it with complacency. What measures of relief tho Government has given the settlers are merely temporary, and suggest no willingness to face tho position courageously and cut its losses. Big fluctuations in the overseas markets for our products have alternately flattered and depressed Mr Massey, who makes no secret of the anxious vigilance with which he watches them. It surely cannot be that ho seriously desires to sec these markets reach, and maintain indefinitely, levels which would justify the prices which the Government paid for soldier settlement land. In Ahat case ho would bo saved the necessity of writing down the value of tho Government’s purchases, but ho would bo faced with other difficulties. The cost of living in New Zealand would soar again—perhaps higher than ever in some lines, recent experience in connection with dairy produce, for instance, suggesting that tho New Zealand consumer can easily be made to pay higher prices than tho commodity is retailed at in England. Mr Massey and -his Ministers are not ordinary people if they would relish the whole business of the cost of living bonus having to begin afresh. Their plea at present is for a stable Government. They should make their own contribution towards one by fostering stable conditions in the community’s life. Land gambling is not one of them, and the Government might set a useful example in the readjustment of values on a lower and more solid basis bv revaluation of soldiers’ settlement land and a corresponding writing down. Mr Holland appears to have a further grievance. Ho says that while Mr Massey boasts of a surplus of millions for the past year he has been starving public works expenditure, especially on tho West Coast. Had that surplus been transferred from the Consolidated to tho Public Works Fund it would have enabled tho expenditure from the latter to come somewhere near what had been spent in the previous year and what had been allocated for the past year. Mr Holland is not yet a veteran in Parliament, but ho has been there long enough to know what value attaches to Public Works Estimates. In the matter of contrast between promise and performance they are such a curiosity that no other explanation, except habit, can be given of tho eagerness with which tho rank and file of politicians await them annually. Mr Holland’s suggestion that soriie attempt should be made to revert to tho practice of paying for a proportion of new works out of revenue instead of out of loan money is a healthy reminder. In war time borrowing became second nature to State Treasurers. They find it a practice hard to drop. Meantime there are so many other claims on a surplus when one is exhibited, and Labor itself has put forward quite a number,