Parliament.

Hastings Standard, Volume XI, Issue 5552, 25 July 1907, Page 2

Parliament.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.; Wednesday, July 24. The House met at 2.30 p.m. BUDGET DEBATE. Mr W. Fraskr resumed the debate on the Financial Statement. He ! acknowledged the improvements! which had taken place of late years in the manner in which the accounts i were presented. He was, however,: surprised to see the statement that the transfer of £750,000 from the Public Works Fund had effected a saving in interest of £27,000. Surely that must have been" meant for a joke, for there was no saving at all. The people should know exactly what the indebtedness was every year; and no doubt if it was all set out it would be several hundreds of thousands of pounds in excess of the amount stated. He urged that the Government had no right to deduct the £500,000 of Bank of New Zealand preference shares held by the Government. He maintained, therefore, that the net debt was improperly stated by 1 that amount. He criticised the sulking fund, stating that the money so set apart was derived from borrowed money. It was a pity so little attention was taken by the public generally in the question ol finance. He maintained that to give a man the freehold was to encourage him, and that the freeholder would do more with his land than the holder under any other tenure. This year's Land Bill was no better than last year's in its evident desire to do awav with the freehold. Mr Fisher complained of the involved state of the Financial Statement, He said that since 1891 there had not been a single Fin?ncial • Statement issued wnich was so lucid and so easily explained. When the late Premier came into office, the indebtedness of the colony was £37,000,000. It had now increased by £22,328,000. The indebtedness per head had increased from £6O 5s 8d to £67 Os lid. He would like the Premier to explain why, in the face of the yearly increasing surpluses, it was necessary to go to the London market to float loans. Some £21,000 was given last year in postal concessions and £17,000 in telegraph concessions, and now it was proposed to give £20,000 in further postal concessions which had never been asked for. Then the sheep-tax was to be remitted, a remission which had never been asked for. A member: The Farmers' Union asked for it. Mr Fisher : Yes, and they asked for the freehold and got it, or are going to get it. Referring to the Midland Railway, he said he could take any five members of the House over that line and they would agree that the expenditure on the line was a most criminal waste of public money. Referring to the finances and the public accounts, he said it was not possible for any member of the House to obtain information of the public accounts except by means ot a Royal Commission. Mr Buddo complained that it still was a fact that the roads in the country were bad. Referring to native lands, he said that settlement on them was going on at too slow a rate. He realised that the Native Lands Commission was doing excellent work. Touching on tariff matters, he urged that the lighter slippers and shoes should be allowed to come in free, especially as they could not profitably be made in the colony. Turning to the flour duty, he said that it was not possible to grow wheat profitably at less than 3s a bushel. He advocated the granting of protection up to 4s a bushel, but contended that a prohibitive duty should be placed on foreign flour. Mr Barber considered that the Government should set an example in the erection of public buildings. He differed from Mr Fisher in that he considered the Midland Railway one of the most important lines He urged that an ad valorem weight duty should be placed on shoddv, which would have the effect of reducing the quantity of shoddy entering the colony and would assist in the development of the colon.?'s woollen industry. Mr Thomson criticised the bookkeeping system of the colony. He advocated better payment for teachers and the placing of the teachers' superannuation fund on a sounder basis. He characterised the Budget as a business one. and commended the Postmaster-General for the concessions granted. He advocated that the State should lend working miners money in the samt manner as money was lent to settlers under the Advances to Settlers' Act. Mr Izard suggested that the Minister for Customs should bring down legislation to enable him in case of necessity to lake the duty off necessaries of life. Referring to the proposed postal concessions, he said he did not think the majoiity of the people were going to gain anything. Referring to the mail service via Suez, he urged that negotiations should be entered into with the Union Steam Ship Company to delay the steamer leaving Sydney on Saturday until Monday, and thus enable the English mail to be delivered in Wellington on Thursday night on Friday morning. He agreed with the proposals set forth for dealing with the restriction of Chinese entering the colony. As to the Land Bill, he did not believe in the Crown parting with land, and advocated the leasehold system with 33 years' lease, which was a sufficiently long term. Mr Hanan advocated the adoption of a protective tariff for the purpose of benefiting colonial industries. The land policy of the Government satisfied him, but he would like to see the graduated land tax commence at £2O- - instead of £40,000. The Premier rose to reply at 11.15 p.m. He said that the criticism so far as it had gone it had not disclosed any weakness in the Financial Statement. The Government had never experienced any difficulty in meeting loans as they became due, and never would. The million loan was to unborrowed, not in England, but in New Zealand. The same people who complained of borrowing money were always endeavouring to procure votes for the erection of large public buildings in their own constituencies. It was hypocrisy to urge Government to cease borrowing, and at the same time ask for grants of public money. Members, who were asking for publicbuilding and railwav facilities and for increases in the wages of public servants, were talking to their constituents in deprecating borrowing money. Dealing with the reduction in the Customs tariff. He contended that there never was a Customs tariff which had given such general satisfaction as the proposals set forth by the Government. The whole matter of Customs had been gone into with a view of assisting industries in a way compatible with reducing the duties on the necessaries of life. There appeared to be an idea that the reduction on motor-cars was intended to benefit rich people. It was put before the Government that a number of business men were desirous of obtaining motor-cars for the purpose of their business, bu

were unable to do so owing to the duty on them. There were 3000 motor-cars in the colony. There should be many more, and he asserted that if the country had its proper share, the cars would employ a number of workmen in the way of repairing and attending to them equal to two-thirds of the railway servants, and, as motor-cars increased in numbers, they would eventually employ as many men as the Railway Depart- ! merit. In connection with the land and income tax, he said he knew men i who wanted to go further than the : proposals in the Budget, but he contended that while a compromise had been made in regard to advanced land legislation, a great deal of their desires were embodied in the Government proposals. There was a proposal to reduce the limit for the graduated land-tax to £20,000. but he pointed out that the Government proposals meant an immediate increase of £90,000. Those members who urged that the Government should go lower had to consider their responsibilities. The point of the Government's proposals was that the ordinary value of land had not been put upon record, because the owners of estates knew that they would be able to go to the Compensation Court, with the result that unfair values had been hxed, and the Government had been compelled to make these drastic proposals. The bill would not only prev.nt the aggregation of estates, but the division of estates, and would lead to owners of land selling at fair values. The debate having concluded, the House went into Committee on the Estimates.