A POLICY OF EXCUSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20607, 4 July 1930, Page 12

A POLICY OF EXCUSES.

Two reasons were given by Mr. Coates for proposing a no-confidence amendment in the House of Representatives yesterday. In effect, his purpose is to emphasise the fact that the United Governmenthas failed to perform its undertakings and that, in spite of the manifestly unsatisfactory results of its administration, it is kept in office by the Labour Party. Attention -was directed especially to the Government's administration of the national finances. A year ago, the Government proclaimed that it had been gravely embarrassed by a deficit of half a million in the Budget, the responsibility for which it positively affirmed rested entirely on its predecessors. Toward the end of April, it issued another proclamation, this time claiming that stability had been restored; a month later, but only 24 hours after the reconstruction of the Ministry, a prospective deficit of £3.000,000 was revealed, together with a determination to economise, subject ,to the light to impose more taxation. Mr. Coates suggested yesterday that the proper course for the Government was to have planned its economies first, so that the potential deficit would not have been so alarming to the country and its creditors, and, incidentally, less reproachful of the Government's administration. It cannot evade responsibility for the present position, for it recklessly increased expenditure and callously raised taxation last year, ignoring such circumstances as the inevitable burden of railway losses upon the Budget. Nor can it pretend that the truth was revealed to it only by the. reconstruction of the Ministry. All but two of the present Ministers had been jii office from the outset of its career, and, owing to the invalidity of their leader, they had been directly in control of affairs for seven months before the reconstruction. Mr. Ransom made no attempt to answer Mr. Coates' criticism. Mr. Veitch resorted once more to the familiar tactics of excusing his party's policy by explaining that it was no worse than the record of the Reform Party. Even if it lie conceded that money was wasted in the past, is the United Government entitled to unlimited licence to borrow and spend without regard to the value of the work or the financial result? It is by that sort of Jugument that the Government defends its policy, and gains the support of (lie irresponsible Labour Party. Common sense demands a greater degree of caution in proportion l<> the measure of past mistakes. Whatever the fesue of the no-confidence debate in the House, there can be no question of the alarm with which (he country regards the determination of the Government to proceed with a policy that leads to only one result —the multiplication of losses and the imposition of additional faxes