THE EMPTY TREASURY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16567, 3 June 1914, Page 8

THE EMPTY TREASURY.

Ar-PA-UENTLY tho purpose of the letter from Mr David Jones which we publish this morning is to give the public the impression that Sir Joseph Ward made a statement at Thames on Monday night which ho would not have made in a larger centre or in the House of Representativea. This is quite tho style of innuendo, in which the Reform organiser excels. The leader of the Opposition may have many faults, as most politicians in common with most other people have, but a lack of courage certainly is not among them. What he said at Thames was that tho Reformers themselves had admitted the existence of a surplus, of £807,276 on March 31, 1912, and that this admission was a sufficient answer to their own stories about an empty Treasury. That he was correct may be judged from the fact that Mr Jones now abandons all criticism of the Consolidated Fund, in which surpluses, of oourse, appear, and hastens to say that it is the Public Works Fund he and his friends havo been calling in question. Then let it be the Public Works Fund. Mr Jones states quite correctly that when Sir Joseph Ward left office tho balance in this fund had "dwindled down to £82,580." But how does this fact help our correspondent? Sir Joseph Ward left a surplus of £507,276 in the Consolidated Fund, of which £760,000 was earmarked for transfer to the Public Works Fund, sufficient to carry on for three or four months, and when Mr Massey took office in July he had unexhausted authorities to borrow amounting to more than four millions. That the Public Works Fund was particularly well supplied during tho Reformers' first year of office may be seen from a table appearing in the Financial Statement of last year. The balance of which Mr Jones writes so contemptuously was supplemented by receipts amounting to £3,374,971, for which the Liberals had- provided, and at the end of the year Mr William Fraser was able to boast of an expenditure of £2,711,068, "the largest in any single year for over thirty years." The Reform organiser jeers at Sir Joseph Ward for not having plunged into the debate on the Financial Statement with all these particulars, but if he will turn to the report of the debate on tho Public Works Statement he will find that the leader of the' Opposition reserved them for their proper place. Ho has repeated them on a scoro of platforms during tho recess and no doubt he would bo glad to repeat them again if he only knew of Mr Jones's thirst for information.