THE LOAN BILL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13889, 25 October 1905, Page 7

THE LOAN BILL.

, POINTS FROM THE DEBATE. [From Orb Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, October 24. / “ Some people complain that we borrow too much,” said the Hon W. HallJones. “ What strikes mo, as Minister in charge of the Department, is the smallness of the sum raised for ,publio works since 1891. Th© total atnount borrowed for public works lias been £9,0CX),000, or an average of something like £600,000 per annum. The Govern,ment and the colony are to bo oongratulted on the smallness of that sum. It has been made possible only by the successful administration of the Government, which has been able to transfer more than £4,000,000 from the Consolidated Fund to the Public "Works Fund.” The Minister said that he was sometimes astonished at th© blunders into which the opponents of the Government fell. They got hundreds cf items mixed up, and then gave_ forth a mass of figures quite ‘ misleading to the public. A Conservative paper* in Christchurch had set out to give the money spent on railways and the number of miles constructed since 1891. It had quoted the total expenditure and the total number of miles of line, and by division had secured the alleged cost per mile, but it had altogether neglected the fact that-a large part of the expenditure had been in the purchase of private lines, so that the calculation was useless and misleading. ' He could not believe this had been done purposely, because he did not think that a respectable journal would do such a thing. , ■ • Auckland members never lose an op--portunity to raise their voices in querulous complaint, and the Hon W. HallJones replied beforehand in moving the second reading of, the Loan Bill. _ “I have no doubt we shall hear again of tlie relative -expenditure on the North Island and South Island, and will have to listen to a wail from the “ roadjfess North.” As a matter‘of fact, last year Auckland secured more publics works money than any other province, and the North Island secured more than the South Island. Wellington came second amongst the provinces. I know that 1 cannot please everybody, and I do not try to do so, but I would like sometimes •to hear a little appreciation instead of continued cavilling from members who must really be satisfied.” Mr Massey replied to the Minister in a speech that has been heard many times before. He pronounced the Government to be incorrigibly bad, and complained bitterly that it did not reform. He stated his belief that the colony was becoming tired of. the slow . and obsolete methods under which it had suffered for the last fourteen years, and that the recent slight decline m some New Zeala'nd stocks marked the lack of confidence of English investors in the Seddpn Administration. He condemned the co-operative labour system,, end repeated the 'oft-refuted statement that the Makohine viaduct cost over £IOO,OOO. Then he compared tho fat and contented town dweller, spoonfed by a beneficent Government, to the gaunt and neglected . country settler, and demanded to know why the Premier did not give the country telephones and other necessaries Tlie Speaker’s bell stopped hira,_ and presumably prevented ]iim delivering the other well-worn charges against the Administration. Sir William Russell complained of the unduly lurjx© expenditure incurred in placing settlors upon the Flaxbourne Estate. He said that one settler on that estate had cost the colony £13,83/. The five largest holdings had averaged £9520, the ten largest £Bl6l, and the twenty largest £6335. The figures, ho said, disclosed a monstrous perversion of the original principle of the Land for Settlements Act. _ They were astonishing, and no credit under the eun could stand such a system of finance. Opposition speakers criticised the railway administration, and Sir William Russell compared tho receipts and working expenses of the New Zealand railways with those of the New South Wales'lines, to the disadvant age of the former. Mr Hogg pointed out that such a comparison was quite unfair. The Australian colony was comparatively old, with a fixed population, and completed railways. New Zealand was still building her lines and spreading her population into new districts, and, under the circumstances ; the wonder was that the colony’s railways pushed New South Wales so close. Tlie Minister of Lands replied to the Opposition figures in regard to Flaxbourne. His speech unfortunately, was, as usual, to a large extent inaudible, but the figures ho quoted showed that tho Flaxbourne settlers cost the colony about one thousand pounds each. The estate was cut up into sixty-four farms, eighteen grazing runs and forty-five small holdings, providing in all for 177 settlers. The cost of the estate was about £IBS,UUU. tv was very unfair, he said, te attempt to damage”tho colony’s credit by selecting a few”sections from an estate and holdin" them up as instances of extravagant i expenditure. Men who did that had I a curious eons© of patriotism. i