THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, AUGUSTS, 8, 1895. THE FINANCIAL DEBATE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2583, 8 August 1895, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

THURSDAY, AUGUSTS, 8, 1895. THE FINANCIAL DEBATE.

fTith which are incorporated the Wellington Independent, established 1845, and the NewZedlhiider. 1 ' ' " ‘ 1 '

Never have wo had ‘ a financial discussion so devoid of sensation.'. We really feel for the Opposition that they have nothing hut small points to make apolitical capital of. They no doubt think'with pain not nnnxixod; with envy of the days when proposals i for the expenditure of vast sums gave’ .vast . opportunities to . the , Opposition , for - denouncing ,the ; weakness of Governments. So far as the , main points of controversy are concerned; there is nothing more to. be said on the debate. The Opposition may have a man or. two to put up yet, .arid they will find the Minister of Lands ready for-them,, and Mr Ward, quite fresh for his reply along the whole line. But the whole subject has been pretty fairly exhausted already. So : much; may be inferred froin the fact that the Opposition has been trying during the debate td jriake capital oat of the idea that the Government is not going to state its existence on every item .of the tariff. But that only shows their ignorance of,the rules and precedents in such matters. To go no further back in our own history than the time, when Government brought forward . its tariff in 1883, we remember,.:; the •, line - : waa. taken that no Government oonld oyer bo expected to stake Its existence on a tariff modification., .On. that occasion the tariff was simply tinassacred Iby tha'i House! in committee. Bat the Government, wo remember,- retained office with most serene; countenance. The precedents, they said, wore in their favour. And i so they were. Later on, when Sir Harry Atkinson had a tariffto - propose, he refrained alto-; gather Ifromftmaking f it/'a.. party" .quea-. tion. 'On the contrary, he in v ited the other side to help him, and be get their help and ho carried his tariff. ' But no one ever thought of saying that ha was humiliated by the process. As Mr Ballaried put it, the tariff - was a thing outside of party politics, to be made as perfect m

possible by the co-operation of the best intellects of the Legislature. That was the true principle, and it is still the true •principle. Mr G-. J. Smith is, we observe, attempting to get the House to pass what is virtually a no-oonfidence motion on the subject. But the only result will be the treatment of his motion with tho contempt which it deserves. If the tariff had been prohibitive of alcoholic consumption, Mr Smith would probably have been satisfied. But his dissatisfaction can only be treated as a joke by the Government.

The debate has cleared the atmosphere wonderfully, by throwing light on three very important subjects. These are the surplus, the “ seizure,” as it has been called, of tho sinking funds,-and the net increase of the public flebt. With regard to the first, various- Opposition speakers have made regular Budget Statements, which have caused the surplus to disappear under their treatment. The basis of all these Budgets is the elimination of the aooretionsof sinkingfund. They want, in fact, to apply to the financial position a standard quite different to the standard applied in former years under former administrations. Judged by the new standard, no Government between 1884 and 1890 can be said to have had a surplus. All of them had deficits ranging from .£150,000 to .£600,000, the latter being the figure of the deficit the Stout-Vogel Government would have left in office if its finance had been submitted to the standard on which tho Opposition and Sir Robert Stout are now insisting. The fact will help them to understand Mr Ward’s contention in London. that the finance of his Government, to be fairly judged, must be judged by the same rules under which the finances -of the country under previous Governments were judged. The public debt, in the matter of its net increase, has been the subject of a revelation. The Budget places the net increase between March 31st, 1891, and March 31st, 1895—the period during which the present Government has held office —at .£1,550,614. This was admitted to be absolutely correct by Mr Hutchison and other speakers yesterday. They also agreed that, for purposes of fair comparison with previous administrations, certain things ought to be eliminated, as out of the ordinary routine which is implied by tho usual talk of borrowing. Government loans to local bodies, expenditure under the Acts for purchase of Native lands, for purchase of lands for settlement, for the acquisition of tho Cheviot estate, for the improvement _of Crown lands and the acquisition of Native lauds—these furnish the list of admissions made very honourably and fairly let us say at once. The various sums under these ho ds amount in the Budget (page 9) to £1,177,560. The Premier very fairly contended that the -list might fairly, be increased by the inclusion of theexpenditure under the Consols Act of last year (£158,025) and under the Naval and Military Settlers Act of 1892 (£27,226), which sums heihg added to the admitted £1,177,506 aforesaid, make a reduction, of the ’ net , debt ■ for purposes' of comparison of . £1,302,817- Subtracting this from the Budget total ■■ of ... the net increase of debt of £1,556,614 wo have the total net increase of debt for which the present Government are at the end of their four years of office responsible, by comparison with their predecessors, of £193,797. But we observe an item of £47,000 in the Budget figures under this head, for the pijroliase of the Kaifiu Valley railway under the District Railways Purchases Acts of 1885-86. As this can'also very fairly bo ■ eliminated from the list of additions to the debt 'of the Government's political initiative, we have the total net iflpreftse of dobt due to the present administration after four years reduced to £146,797■ After four years of battering merciless criticism, the Government is found to have added to the debt, found by Agaras admitted by tbs Opposition to bo correct, less than £150,000. It is a revelation. as. startling as it is pleasing.' , . _ ~ Then’wa have the'seizure of the sinkingfunds. 1 The Budget contemplates dealing with the accretions of sinking fund-under the Loans to Local Bodies; Act. The debate has narrowed the issue—which appeared much broader in the newspaper comments—to this-question. Sir Robert Stout maintained that the Budget proposal was illegal, improper and without warrant, and also not covered by the Act of 1884. Now, in the first- place ...the Act of )884 .is Incorporated in subsequent Statute,? of ,1891-92. Secondly, and what (b of wore importance, it-is evident that in a matter of sudb importance tfie 'Government has-not com® to ifs conclusion without being fortified pj tpe best legal opinion; that of its own Jaw officers. It cannot'bo bound by the opinion ’of apy outside- lawyer who. may' volunteer to .give his ideas on the subject; who is biassed) perhaps, against them, and certainly not paid for his opinion. Unpaid legal opinions are, we may remark in passing, proverbially bad. In the third place, a question of this kind, serious as it is, goes with- • out ■ saying have had tI)P sejnops and most earnest attention ot the Controller-’and (Auditor-General. nit it, moreover, a fact that the 1 issue; of the do-' bentures was passed by that officer. If then tho argument of the senior member for Wellington is worth anything, tho highofficer in question must have - been a party to a proposal illegal, improper and without warrant, which .is ,of course absurd. The absurdity cb/py-K tho hollowness -' of theargument already rejected by the, law officers of the,,Crown,,' Tije' result of tho debate,: then) is that the" criticism of the proposed “seizure” of certain sinking funds —those accrued under .loans to looal bodies—has been. knocked to pieces. Consider!ng all things,-the Government can aw aft- further debate developments: with equanimity.-