FINANCIAL DEBATE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2693, 11 July 1923, Page 5

FINANCIAL DEBATE.

OPENED BY MR. WILFORD. A BUDGET FULL OF CONTRADICTION. A POLITICAL ACCIDENT. (from Cur Parliamentary Reporter^) WELLINGTON, Last Night The financial debate was opened in tho Hausc to-night by the Leader ol' the Opposition (Mr T. M. Wilford), before full galleries. Mr Wilford said tho days when the Budget reflected the policy of the Government Jiad gone. The Budget Of IUI2 and its promises brought dawn by Sir James Ajlcii was only political window-dressing, and that bad practice Lad continued right up to present date. Reform Ministers were never long in charge of Departments, and that might be the cause of the weaknesses in the Budget. The latest Budget was full of contradictions and inaccuracies. The Reform Government might well be described as an electoral accident. Tho Reform Government stood against the State Bank, and in favour of the present banking system. The speaker felt that the banks at present hampered production, progress, and industry, and interest was too high and would remain so until there was Stato competition. Ho criticised the Government's harrowing policy, and said the people might well wonder whither this borrowing and spendthrift Government was leading the country. Why was there no proposal in the Budget for relieving the burden of the producers in regard to exchange. There could be no free How of capital from the Old Country while the present rate of exchange was allowed. Instead of taking £3,000,000 and applying it to the reduction of war debt, over £1,950,000 was not so applied. That was another breach of faith by Reform.

Parliament would have: to, set itself against huge borrowings. What wo ought to aim at in this country was the stimulation of industry by an increasing- liow of capital o,r a reduction of taxation. He was satisfied company taxation ought to be reduced. Respecting the annual appropriations, he asked J\lr Massey how he squared the Budget statements with his recent utterances. The expenditure proposed in the departments this year exceeded by nearly a million and a half the expenditure of last year. What was the reason of this? Was this prating of emono my merely words? Over 25 classes of the Estimates represented increases. Was there a member of the House who credited the statement in the Budget that the arrears of interest owing by soldier settlers was £641,000? He did not credit it, and said the Government was hiding the true position. The Budget said people were going to have penny postage bacK, but on the other hand the Government would take the money in increased telephone charges. The most woeful exhibition of incompetence in the Budget was under the heading of Land .Settlement. It was hopeless, and he believed that 75 per cent, of the unemployment in this country was going to be done away with by a progressive land policy, Mr Downie Stewart said, as he read the Budget, the railways had paid £3 0/10 per cent., which was more than the £3 per cent, the Liberals also laid down. —Mr Forbes: Li. —Mr Wilford had complained that the Customs duty was too high, but this statement could not be reconciled with his statement made last year that the tariff did not afford adequate protection to New Zealand industry. The debate stands adjo,urned lib to-morrow.