THE GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL POLICY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2986, 6 August 1870, Page 3

THE GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL POLICY.

The following is the continuation of Mr Vogel’s speech in reply:— I will now refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Wallace, Mr Webster. His speech was exceedingly fair and candid. He did not desire to pledge himself in advance as to details of the measures ; but he expressed himself as folly prepared to go into the consideration of the measures. Moreover, as to any measures upon which the House might decide, he was sure that if they were wisely framed, effect could be given to them m the money market. Although I should have been more pleased to have seen our ® . receive warm support from the hon. > 1 am very well satisfied with what he said , for I am sanguine that if the bills are P ceeded with, their provisions will receive from the hon,«member a fair and unbiassed judgment. I think that we have very much for which to thank the hon. member for Oamaru, Mr Graham, in that he urged, as 1 may say, hon. members to realise that the debate not for the purpose of enabling them to co - ceal, but for the purpose of eliciting, tneir opinions. Up to the time when the hon. member spoke, there seemed to he an idea that the prominent members of the Hou should rather conceal than express opinions ; and I think that the hon. member s speech was productive of great good, by mauucing a mote free expression of J opinion, now come to the speech of myr non trie the member for Coleridge, Mr Craoroft Wilson. I think he rather apologised to t committee at the outset, by saying he felt ought not to speak; and I think he would

; have shown himself a wiser man if he had speaking.; yery. thp opening of his speech he told its that he ’ W; y?*®, for thp-GoTernraent proposals, if, hif constituents desired him so to do. I think i *hat that is what was understood by all. who heard the speech. Certainly there may be amystety in the language of the bon. member which is not fathomable by ordinary individuals ; but if there is any meaning in the following Sentence, I think it must be the meaning which I have stated ;—“ lam very certain that my constituents will stand aghast when they hear of the vastness of the financial schemeof the present Ministry, and I for one will not vote for the raising of one shilling by Joan until I have had an opportunity of consulting that constituency. I may be wrong, but that is what I shall do. That constituency extends over a very large district.*’ lam very sorry for the electors of the district, 1 am sure. Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.: They were not sorry for themselves. Mr VoQEL: The hon. member continues—- “ And if my constituents sanction this frantic scheme, and they return me to this House again, they must take the responsibility on themselves; but, until that time comes, I for one will not vote for any loan whatever.” If that does not mean that if the constituents of the hon, member are blind enough to return him to this House again, he will vote for measures which he says will ruin thousands of families, there is no meaning in language. I tell the hon. member that that is a lamentable, a wretched position to assume. The hon. member tells us that he is prepared to head a party, the cardinal point of whose policy is to be, that not a single shilling shall be borrowed—he invited hon. members to rally round him, though I believe there has been no such rallying round him, however much he may have been rallied because of his speech—be assures us that the not-a-shilling-to-be-borrowed policy is his policy this session, but then be gives us to understand that he will reverse that policy next session—if he happens to be re-elected, and bis constituents wish it.

Mr Graorok Wilson, C.B. : Certainly not.

Mr Vogel: I will read the extract again. Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.: You have no occasion to do so.

Mr Vogel: Perhaps there is a misprint ? Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.: Certainly not. Mr Vogel : Then I do not understand the hon. member’s meaning in talking about not voting for a loan at all, and about referring to his constituents, if what I have suggested is not the meaning of his language. I appeal to bon. members generally, whether I am not putting a legitimate construction upon the language I have quoted. Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8,: If the hon. member’s antecedents prevent his understanding what I say, is that any fault of mine ? Mr Vogel: I do not know about antecedents. Perhaps they are the hon. member’s misfortune; perhaps they are his good fortune. But the hon. member appears to speak in a spirit which, if it results from those antecedents, does not suggest that they were of a very enviable nature. Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.: A very enviable nature I can assure the hon. member. Mr Vogel: The hon. member does not condescend to be at all explanatory. He did not tell us bow he supposed defence expenditure was to he met, I do not know whether he means we should pay it or not. He simply says, “ I will not consent to a single shilling being borrowed.” Perhaps it would be too much to ask the hon. member to favour the Committee with an explanation. Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.: lam not paid for explaining. Mr Vogel : I wish to put the Committee clearly in possession of the insinuations which the hon. member levelled against myself. I am not at all anxious to engage in a passage of arms with the hon. member, but if he goes out of his way to level against me what there can be no doubt was a personal affront, I am not so blind as to fail to perceive it. Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.: Certainly, not; no personal affront was meant. Mr Vogel: Then again I fail to understand what the hon. member means.

Mr Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.; I mean, that I never intended to affront, personally, the hon. member. I apologised before making the little bit I did make; I admitted that it was likely the hon. member would say that my intellect was limited, and he has done so.

Mr Vogel : That is no excuse, or, if it is an excuse for affronting a man 'that you apologise to him beforehand, ! am stire I will apologise to the hon. member most humbly for what I am going to say about him.' I will read the extract from the hon. member’s speech to which I have referred :“ I now entreat this Assembly to pause, and to prevent the historian of New Zealand writing, some fifty years hence iUfeference to the scheme which is now before us,' something of this sort: ‘The Vogel Bubble—the most ruinous speculation of .modern times. It was projected by Julius; Vogel, who had raised himself to the dignity of Finance Minister ; it was miserably conceived, and afterwards dishonestly managed. It commenced in 1870, and exploded in 1880, ruining thousands of families,’ and Mr Smith, the cashier, absconded with £100,000.’ ” If the hon. member tells me that he did not mean that to be an insult to me, I can only look for an explanation of his so saying to those antecedents to which he has already referred. Such may be a scale of morality acquired in the East India Company’s service. It is possible to conceive that the traditions of a service which present to us horrible instances of corruption, might lead one dwelling in an; atmosphere from which all taint of the past bad not been removed, to think it a venial sort of thing to run away with £IOO,OOO. I believe that many persons in the East India Company’s service in past times would not have thought such a running away to be an y great offence. I am Bure, from what I know of the hon. member for Coleridge, that he is perfectly incapable of doing that which a person of the nicest honour would not do; but, though his own sense of moral rectitude might keep him from doing anything to which a person of the nicest honour could object, still it is possible that from long dwelling in an atmosphere such as that to which I have alluded, his moral sense may be sufficiently blunted to prevent his recognising that it is an insult to another to make a suggestion of such a kind as the hon. member did make. When one reads the revelations as to the past of the East India Company’s service—say, such revelations as were made during the trial of Warren H astings—one may conclude, that possibly not very long ago, atrocities were committed in that service such as would make anything of the kind suggested by the hon. member appear comparatively trifling. After all bad as it would be to mismanage a railway scheme, or to run away with £IOO,OOO, 1 suppose nobody would say that it was not much worse to grill Natives or fricassee Parsee merchants, in order to make them divulge where their hoards were hidden. And since we know that such things are traditions of the Bast India Company’s service, perhaps the hon. member’s moral sense may really, to bis misfortune, have been so blunted, aa to make it Impossible for him to understand that the insinuations he has made are of an insulting nature. lam sorry to believe that there was some little animus in the matter. 1 think that some not good friends of the non. member have, outside the House, excited him by some unjustifiable jokings, until he is under a very mistaken impression as to myself, f am sorry, too, that the hon. member should be in the House, the incarnation of the spirit of non-progression. He sees no beneflt that can result from progression j his creed • «hnrt and simple, “ Sit still—do nothing.” 1 *5? time will come when the hon. member will have ventured to P re P“ re u it _ wh ich 1 sketch— histonetm I with wh ich wish to place HLoured us the other day, the hon. favoured w sist«‘yasswafc l”Suppose the" reUireye to be completed.

-Mr OrachoftWilson, G. 8.: Whlch-is a begging of the question. Mr Vogel j This is my historlette 'i ?

i " These railways were constructed at the instance of a beneficent Government, supported by a wise and far-seeing Legislature, out of money which otherwise might have been wasted on the introduction of Goorkhas, to please the vanity of a well-meaning but wrong-headed old gentleman named Cracroft Wilson, C. 8.” I now come to the opinions expressed by my hon. friend the member for Avon. It is impossible to quarrel with those opinions, because they were evidently expressed under an overwhelming sense of responsibility. We may wish that the hon. member had spoken under a less strong sense of the responsibility attaching to him; for had he so spoken, he might have expressed opinions more favourable to the scheme of the Government. I take it that the hon. member may be regarded as not altogether decided for or against the proposals ; and that as they continue to be considered, and perhaps modified, we may find that he will join in supporting them ; but I confess I km not sanguine on that point, because the hon. member is one who shews so much anxiety in deciding what line of conduct he shall adopt, that that very anxiety often, as 1 think, misleads him. What the hon. member said as to the letter of the Commissioners respecting an assumed guarantee against a new loan, need not, I am sure, after what I have stated and read to the Committee, he again referred to. The figures given by the hon. member were very instructive. They shewed us the astounding progress which Canterbury has made; and it seemed to me that it was in the mind of the hon. member to shut out the rest of the colony from the prospect of such improvement as has taken place in Canterbury, rather than to say to the other provinces, “ Go and do likewise,” The hon. member’s figures appeared to me to amount to an almost convincing proof of the policy of pushing forward railways in all parts of the colony. He told us of the astounding success of the railways in the Canterbury province ; and the deductions fairly to be drawn from his remarks and statistics appeared to me to be just the opposites of the deductions which, as 1 gathered, the hon. member drew from them. When we think that the measures of the Government are measures which will enable Canterbury, more rapidly than will otherwise be possible, to progress in the course which . has been so beneficial in the past, his arguments appear to be reduced to this absurdity—that Canterbury shall not enjoy the benefits of these measures, because the other parts of the colony will also -benefit by them. I believe that when Canterbury first decided upon initiating a railway policy—involving as it did one enormous work with which the name of a gentleman well known in this House is inseparably connected—the population of the province was only about 12,000. With such a population, a policy was conceived, which has had for its results up to the present time the expenditure of about £600,000 upon railways. “There, it might have been said, “ will be a legacy of debt amounting to £SO a head upon the population.” Remember, too, that when once that “ Moorhouse Tunnel ” was commenced, it was bound at all cost and risk to be proceeded with, or all the money expended would be a sheer waste; and remember, further, that no such argument can be applied as against the colonial railway policy which we now propose to initiate, because we say only, “ We will construct such railways as may from time to time be found to be desirable and payable.” But Canterbury entered upon railway construction with a population of some 12,000, and with that great tunnel difficulty before it. And what has been the result ? One which the hon. member for Avon describes as eminently satisfactory. I meant to have read, for the benefit of the hon. member for Coleridge, and I will read now, some of the timid predictions indulged in when it was first proposed to construct railways in England. Read now-a-days, those predictions are grotesque to a degree that one would think they originally appeared in a Punch of the period. Mr Robert Stephenson, describing the opposition which was experienced, said:—“ I remember that we called one day on Sir A stley Cooper, the eminent surgeon, in the hope of overcoming his aversion to the railway. He was one of our most inveterate and influential opponents. His house was at Hemel Hampstead, and the line was so laid out as to pass through part of his property. We found a courtly fine looking old gentleman of very stately manners, who received us kindly, and heard all we had to say in favour of the project. But he was quite inflexible in his opposition to it. No deviation or improvement that we could suggest had the slightest effect in conciliating him. He was opposed to railways generally and this in particular. ‘Your scheme,‘said he,‘is preposterous in the extreme. It is of'so extravagant a character as to be positively absurd. Then, look at the recklessness of your proceedings! You are proposing to cut up our estates in all directions for the purpose of making an unnecessary road. Do you think for one moment of the destruction of property involved by it ? Why, gentlemen, if this sort of thing be permitted to go on, you will, in a very few years destroy the noblesse.’” I think that the spirit of Sir Astley Cooper still survives in the hon. member for Coleridge. Mr Harrison, addressing the Committee of the House of Commons as one of the counsel against the Liverpool and, Manchester Railway Bill, contended that railway trains could not go six miles an hour. He said :—“ Locomotive engines are liable to be operated upon by the weather. You are told that they are affected by rain, and an attempt has been made to cover them, but the wind will affect them; and any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam until the boiler was ready to burst.” Mr (afterwards Baron) Alderson, in summing up for the opponents of the Bill, declared Stephenson’s plan to be “ the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head of man to conceive.” The Canal Companies, we are told, “ prepared to resist the measure tooth and nail. The public were appealed to on the subject; pamphlets were written, and newspapers were hired to revile the railway. It was declared that its formation would prevent cows grazing and hens laying. The poisoned air from the locomotive would kill birds as they flew over them, and render the preservation of pheasants and _ foxes no longer possible. Householders adjoining the projected line were told that their houses would be burnt up by the fire thrown from the engine chimneys; while the air around would be polluted by clouds of smoke. There would no longer be any use for horses; and if railways extended, the species would become extinguished, and oats and hay be rendered unsaleable commodities. Travelling by rail would be highly dangerous, and country inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst, and blow passengers to atoms. But there was always this consolation to wind up with—the weight of the locomotive would completely prevent its moving, and that railways, even if made, could never be worked by steam power.” The Hon. Edward Stanley, when the Liverpool and Manchester Bill came on for third reading in the House of Commons, moved « That the Bill be read a third time this day six months ” ; and that motion was seconded by an amiable old gentlemen named Sir Isaac Coffin, who said, “ He would not consent to see widows’ premises invaded, or the premises of any humble person invaded, to promote the views and interest of certain high personages The present was one of the most flagrant impositions ever known.” “ What,” he continued, “ he should like to know, was to be done with those who had advanced money in making and repairing turnpike roads f What with those who may still' wish to travel in their own or hired carriages, after the fashion of their forefathers ? What was to become of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters, and coachmen, inn-keepers, horse-breeders, and horsedealers ? Was the House aware of the smoke and the noise, the hiss and the whirl, which locomotive engines, passing at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, would occasion? Neither the cattle ploughing in the fields nor graving |b (he meadows could behold them

without dismay. Iron would be raised in price 100 pen cent., of more .probably, exhausted altogether I It would be the greatest nuisance, the moat complete disturbance of quiet Ana comfort in all parts of the' kingdom that the ingenuity: of man cdtild invent,”; I read these extrcts to show that the hon members of this Houte who express such dismay at the idea of a line of railway being constructed in a new country, are not the first who have been dismayed by proposals of i the kind, nor the first to express their .dismay in very extravagant language. The last remark does not, of course, apply to the hon.; member for the Avon, because, hia objections were couched in the most moderate and temperate terms. I regret that (lie hd.n.member did not think it necessary to state his opinions upon the other parts of our proposals, such as the capitation allowance, the road board subsidy, and the borrowing for defence expenditure ; but I suppose 1 may infer that he approved of those proposals, seeing that he did not think it necessary to express disapproval of them. The hon. member for the Wairarapa, Mr Bunny, is, 1 think, to he congratulated on the out-spoken tone he adopted in this debate. If there is a father of this railway scheme in this House, I think the hon. member for Wairarapa can claim the merit of being that father. I can myself point, and other hon. members can point, to opinions expressed as to its being necessary that there should be a future railway policy for this country. But the hon. member lor Wairarapa did more than that. Two years ago, when I proposed a resolution as to immigration, the hon. member for Wairarapa proposed an amendment, which it is but fair I should now read :—That, in the opinion of this House, a measure should be introduced to set apart, permanently, a portion of the territorial revenue of the colony, for the purpose of providing the interest and sinking fund on the sum of £2,000,000, to be borrowed and expended in the colony for works of a reproductive character.” Of course, the present proposals take a different shape. The works now proposed are not to be made directly chargeable on the territorial revenue, though the machinery of the bills will allow land to be used for the purpose of works. Still, if we must find a parent to be particularly credited with this scheme, 1 think the hon. member for the Wairarapa has as great a claim as any other member of the House. I hare often expressed an opinion that a railway policy would be a necessary policy; but it will hie admitted that there is a great distinction between such gener alisings and coming down with a carefully elaborated plan, and submitting it as a whole to the House. The speech made by the hon. member for Waikouaiti, Mr Rich, I am sure made the Committee regret that the speech was not considerably longer. The practical manner in which be gave his opinion on the different features of the financial statement, must have convinced hon. members who have not the pleasure of knowing him, that be has a large and practical acquaintance with the absolute colonisation of the country which fully entitle him to express an opinion upon all the subjects treated of in the Government proposals. 1 was exceedingly gratified to find that although the hon. member was not able to accept the statement as a whole, there were so many of its features with which he was able to express perfect satisfaction. The hon. member for the Hutt, Mr Ludlam, expressed himself much more favourable to the scheme than I had anticipated. I was, indeed, much surprised to find that he was so little opposed to the proposals of the Government; and be was sufficiently liberal to admit that the time bad come when we should think of a policy having for its object to develop the interior of the country. lam hot sure that there is any other member of the House who could give more useful aid in shaping and carrying oat the measures of the Government, than the hon. member for the Hutt. 1 trust that if these measures are proceeded with, we shall have the help of the hon. member ; because as 1 have already stated, sp long as questions of principle are not attacked, we desire to see our bills moulded into the shape which will make them most useful to the country. I cannot agree with the. hon. member that the scheme is anti-provincial; except that it is a scheme in which we bold it to be necessary to use the joint labours of the General and Provincial Governments. There is no broad line drawn between the labours of the Provincial Government and those of the General Government in connection with the scheme ; but inasmuch as co-opera-tion is essentia), 1 cannot agree that the scheme is necessarily anti-provincial. If the hon. member means that the scheme is antiprovincial because we say that if the provinces refuse to work it out, we consider the objects of immigration and public works to be superior to the maintenance of any particular political organisation, then, and to that extent, . I agree with him. But I cannot believe that any province will so refuse. I hope that none will. In the principal provinces, I-can .'say that there does not exist that spirit which would lead to a refusal to accept the facilities of settlement and progress because those facilities come from the colony ; and if' our measures are passed, I believe that the tendency of the provinces will rather be that of almost undue anxiety to take advantage of them, than a desire not to take advantage of them at all. Of course, it is to he borne in mind, that whilst the present Government remain in office, there will be a feeling of confidence in the minds of those who are the ardent supporters of provincialism that there will be no desire to infringe upon the rights and privileges of the provinces. A very quaint and amusing speech was made by the hon. member for Ashley, Mr Tancred. That speech, I think, was in its way a curiosity, deserving to be preserved under a glass frame in the Museum. The bon. member told us the scheme was the wildest and the maddest of which he had ever heard—yet, that he was going to vote for it. Of course, the Government could not quarrel with a vote so frankly and freely offered ; but I should be doing an injustice to my ownintelligence, were I to pretend not to understand the meaning of the speech. I think the hon. member indulged the House with a quaint paradox, but one easily to be understood. I take it that his meaning was this—there is a wide and irresistible determination in the mind of the country to borrow money in order to carry out reproductive works; that he thinks, and thinks sincerely, that it is not expedient money should be borrowed for the purpose; but that he does not see any way of stemming the tide of public opinion. I take it that he therefore comes to the conclusion;—As money will be borrowed, it is better that the purposes to which it is to be applied should be well defined and of a large nature, than that there should be a trusting to chance as to the purposes for which money is to be borrowed, and to leave the money to be scrambled for in a manner of which he would certainly disapprove, much more than he would of the rigid application of the money to purposes defined before there was any borrowing. So, although the hon. member offered his support in an amusing style, I think it is a support of which we may not only avail ourselves, but which we may fairly congratulate the hon. member upon giving. The hon. member for Wanganui, Mr H. S. Harrison, I thank for his cordial approval of the various features of our proposals. It was an approval not of a party nature; because bis remarks showed that be had carefully studied the various features, and, as the result of that study, was enabled to give them his support. [To be continued.]