THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10179, 13 October 1894, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1894.

Last year the Public Works Statement was brought down on September 21, the Government incurring severe and proper criticism on account of the lateness of the date; yet this year there has been an additional delay of nearly three weeks. Mr Seddon pretends that this delay " was quite unavoidable, seeing that the ways and means available could not be ascertained until the recent legislation in reference to improving! Crown lands and purchasing Native lands was effected." The apology is characteristically shallow. The sums appropriated under the new legislation are, as a matter of fact, quite apart from the ordinary public works fund: the Minister's own tables make this clear enough ; and there is not the slightest reason why the Statement should not have been produced weeks ago, the special appropriations for lands improvement and. purchase of Native lands being made conditional on the passing of the legislation. It is most improper that the Statement should be brought down at the fag-end of the session, when the financial year has entered upon its latter half, and when Parliament is either wearied or immersed in the final rush of business. It may suit Ministers well enough that their proposals should escape adequate consideration at the hands of the representatives of the people, hut the public welfare is not served by„-t_is course of procedure.

The Statement itself is not an uninteresting document, though in one sense, no doubt, the glory of Public Works Statements may be said to have departed. The amount of money to be spent nowadays is comparatively small: and, moreover, the other extraordinary proposals made by the Government this year tend to the dwarfing of small appropriations for railways and buildings. The special funds open up important projects, but there is nothing striking about what may be called the ordinary policy of the Statement. Appropriations are made to the extent of £640,163, apart from the two sums of £150,000 for the special purposes already mentioned. The money available includes a balance of £263,738, a transfer of a quarter of a million from the consolidated fund, and released sinking funds to the amount of £54,681. The appropriations will leave a' balance of only £7453 on the ordinary account, together with £100,000 each on the lands improvement and Native lands purchase account. Tho local import and hearings of the Statement naturally engage our primary attention, but there are a number of more general points, which may fitly be noticed on a future occasion. ', '77,

The chief interest of the Statement for the people of this province naturally centres in the paragraph devoted to the Otago Central railway, and it is a paragraph which: we have read with very mixed feelings. With the appropriation (£45,000) for the present year we have no particular fault to find: it does not seem a very large sum in comparison with the large amounts which- are to he raised

or other purposes, but we need not oi iomplai- so long as the money is really H pent. ' JBut Mr Seddon's reference to pi . .no past fills us with amazement, tb seldom lias a bolder attempt at nt leluding Parliament and the public l,° jailed for immediate exposure. We _^ ire actually invited to believe that s t ;he Otago Central, as, regards its e*j ;reatment by successive Governments, ias received more than its duo. Mr t , Seddok" asserts that only. .-£605,000 ai las been allocated to the railway under ft ;he different loan acts, but in arriving in it this conclusion he makes a treinen- &' lous omission—an omission of no less w bhan ,£165,000 —though more than three r - years ago we demonstrated that this al same omission was utterly unjustifiable. ci Here are the allocations:— £ 1888 ' .„.■. ... £300,000 . 0! 1884-- ... . ... 165,000 c 188G I*o,ooo s , 1888 „. ' ... 85,000-. ~< £690,000 * Now, Mr Seddon- absolutely omits the n allocation of £165,000 iv 1884, thus * repeating the mistake made by the Acting' TJnder-secretary for Public a "Works in 1891. Before explaining t this matter once more, we may * point ■ out that- tho difference be-- " tween Mr SEDDC-fs calculation of \ v allocations and ours amounts to only h £85,000, not to £165,000; but this is ** owing' to the fact that he now adds, for c the first time, certain sums (£80,000) g in respect of permanent-way sleepers <* and rolling stock. AYe havo no objec- c tion to this addition, but. he must . v go on to make the further addition t of the £165,000 (1884), .bringing -his total "to £770,000/ And now as to this same £165,000: — £ When we first went thoroughly into the 1 wrongs of the Obago Central in June • 1891, we showed clearly that though 3 this sum of £165,000 was not , specifically allocated to the railway < in the Loan Act of 1884, ib must i certainly be included in the list ■ of allocations. The Loan Act ' had ( a lump sum of £700,000 set down , for "railways," and section 15 pro- ; vided- that the moneys raised should ■ be expended for the purposes for'which \ they were appropriated by Act of Par- , liament, "and for no other purposes whatever." Hence we urged that the Loan Act of 1884 must be construed together with the Immigration and Public Works Appropriation Act of the same year, in which latter Act £165,000 was specifically appropriated for the Otago Central. " Therefore," to quote our own words (June 5, 1891), "to all intents and purposes this sum was ' allocated. by | loan, as well as appropriated for the | purpose named." The Acting Under-sec-' i retary.for Public Works was requested to furnish a report on our criticisms, and he made a pitiably lame attempt to show that we had no right to include the £165,000 of 1884. In a subsequent article (July 11, 1891) we demonstrated the mistake made by the Under-secretary, and that, indeed (as we wero justified in putting it), he had " fallen into a tremendous and very palpable blunder." As a matter of fact, there is not the shadow of a reason for omitting the £165,000, which, to all intents and purposes, was allocated in 1884; yet the Minister for Public Works does not scruple, to make the omission, in order that he may seem to show that there has been an excess of expenditure over allocation amounting to £32,273. Let us add the £165,000, and then (accepting the Minister's own figures regarding expenditure) see how the matter stands :— Allocations according to Mr Seddon... £605,000 Add fori.-* ... .... 165,000 £770,000 Expenditure ... • 637,273 Balance due to Otago Central railway ... ... ... ... ~..£132,727 It must be remembered, moreover, that we, like Mr Seddon, are taking the loan allocations only: were we to go on the basis of annual appropriations it might plausibly be urged that something like half a million has been diverted from the Otago Central railway from beginning to end. Before leaving the subject of the Otago Central, we may just repeat an : expression of hope that there will i be no delay in pushing on the work, and i that the whole of the money allocated ; will be spent before March 31. The : Otago Central 'Railway League and the i parliamentary representatives of the > province must continue watchful, and ; see to it that the scandals of the past i are never again repeated in regard to i the construction of this line.

Before concluding our remarks on the local import of the Statement, we may note that the appropriation (.£10,000) for the Catlin's Eiver railway and (£15,000) for the Seaward Bush railway are satisfactory, the latter being the same amount as last year and the former £2500 more. There is a vote once more for the Dunedin Gaol, and now that unreasonable opposition has been removed, we trust that this work will be energetically put in hand without delay. There are a number of other votes affecting Otago, including ,£20i840 und-fii* the land improvement

account, to which wo may make further reference on a subsequent occasion.