THE BUDGET.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 July 1924, Page 6

THE BUDGET.

DEBATE OPENS. MR. WILFORD LEADS ATTACK. CBV XISIiEUKAtH PRES£ ASSOCIATION, j • ~ \\ ELLINGTON, Julv 29. The debate on tne Budget was opened m tne House to-iugm:. Mi' i . At. \\ iliord (.Beader of the Opposition; said lie proposed to spenu oiie time at ins disposal in showing .tiiat it was a Budget of inaccuracy and misr.epresen ration, and, further,'’ tnat inaccuracies were not only to be founo m the ngures pi educed outside the Budget, but even within the Budget itseu. It was a colourless Budget, nevoid o.t policy. The iirst inaccuracy was the statement- that the profit- on the British 5 per cent war loan bonds amounted .to *:l3'/.040. 'That Was not so, for the figures produced by the Auditor-General showed the loss on this transaction was £6758.

Coming to the discharged soldiers’ settlement account, fie declared interest was net being paid on the capital sum invested. There was now facing this country a liability amounting to c.L, 430, OHO in connection with this account, lint- this was not set out in the Budget. There was nothing more a baid statement that the sum of £54,00(1 has not been liquidated tins year. In some cases the- Premier treated lenewals of loans as loans paid off. That was absurd, and he found by the Auditor-General’s figures that- only some £o,000,(J(J0 had been paid off, not £8,6(10,060, as stated in die Budget. Referring next to the (reduction of the public .debt, he contended that the statements in the Budget were mislading. The Premier stated the public debt Pad been reduced, and the Audi-tor-General reported that the debt had been increased in the twelve months under review by a sum of £2,663,037. Discussing the State advances account, he declared there was no way of checking advances made by this department, as the information lie asked fou* had not been supplied to him. it was likewise impossible to get at the earnings of the railways, because the Premier put into his Budget several different accounts, none of which tallied.

•Coming to the assets set off as against the debits of the country, one of these assets was set down as immigration rained at £2,689,775. He would like to know how this was arrived at.. (Samoa was also sot down as an asset, no notice evidently having been taken of the loan granted to that country.

The Hon. C. J. Parr said the figures given in the Budget were quite accurate and dependable in all respects. The Budget showed that the country was in a sound position. It showed there was a surplus of £1.500,009, due to careful administration, it was savings, not money wrung from the pockets of the people. The estimates cj expenditure were most carefully prepared, and he ventured to say B that never in the history of the countiry had there been such an accurate calculation. In spite of what Mr Wilford had said, the fact was that the national debt had beer, greatly reduced, and if there were discrepancies between the Premier’s statement and that of Mr Wilford it was due to the fact that one was referring to the nett national debt while the other (referred to the gross debt. There was also, proceeded Mr Panr, a reduction of taxation amounting to £1,000,000 announced in the Budget, about which Mr Wilford had said nothing. M ore ' than that, the credit of the country never stood, higher in Britain than at present, as was proved by the favourable terms in which our' latest loans were raised. Mr Parr'said Mu- Wilford bad declared wherever he had spoken in the country that the Government was extravagant and was everlastingly borrowing large sums' of money, yet at the same time lie demanded that the Government should enter upon schemes for more pensions, more money for settlers and so on, which would not cost less than £10,000,000. He contended the Budget disclosed the country to be in a sound position, and notwithstanding the somewhat mean and petty criticism of the Leader of the Opposition, it showed that the finances of the country had been placed in such a satisfactory condition as to entitle the Premier to the greatest credit. The debate was adjourned.