THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1908. THE OPPOSITION PROGRAMME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14358, 30 October 1908, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1908. THE OPPOSITION PROGRAMME.

It certainly cannot be alleged against tlia Opposition that it has failed to ntbmit to the electors a plain and .straight-Forward statement of the direction towards which, in its opinion, the efforts of Parliament .should in future be' bent. Mr Mnssey has proclaimed, with perfect oxplicitness, the policy which, he think l ; the country should pursuc) and which he i«, together with those associated with him, prepared to do his best to promote. It is possible, and indeed probable, that many person,? who arc in accord with most of the proposals contained in the programme may he unable to recognise the desirability of the whole of them, but if the electors recognise that the principles advocated by Mr Ma<wey are pound in the main thoy would be foolish to permit their doubts respecting the wisdom of minor features of the Opposition's' programme to influence them against the party. A democratic community must realise that .some of the more important proposals with which the Opposition is identified aim at the accomplishment of a highly necessary reform. Noteworthy among these is the claim for "restoration of the gnrlianicnta.ry control.of the public

finances by improving ihe system of public audit and by restricting the power now possessed by the Ministry, °f expending upon one object money voted by Parliament for another." Fortunately, ire may look in any case ior an improvement in the .system of audit. The Government, which; has already, by abolishing the system of departmental audits and reviving the practice whereby the Auditor-general audits tho receipts of the principal departments of Slate, admitted the justice of the complaint, for years made by the Opposition, that tiifi system of colonial audit wa.s unsatisfactory and imperfect, itself proposes the institution, of a reform. Hut a ministry which bas once gained a power of control of the finances, such as Mr Seddon, with tho aid of a complaisant following, wrested from Parliament, has no enro to relinquish what it has acquired. Yet there, is nothing more necessary than that Parliament, as the direct representative of tho taxpayers, should reassert its right to maintain control of the funds of the State. Theoretically Parliament is master of the public l'urse ) and the Government is the servant of Parliament. Actually the Government in New Zealand is the master. Parliament votes sums of money for expenditure, but the Government, at its sweet pleasure, obeys or ignores the instructions it receives. Nor does the fact that a'sum of money « voted for a specific object prevent its being applied to another object. An appropriation for a. railway at one end of the Dominion may, if the Government so wills- it, without refcrenco to Parliament, be wholly applied to expenditure upon a railway at the other 'end. The Government may not spend the whole of a' vote for a particular work. It is fairly consistent, for instance, in its neglect to expend the whole, or even a large proportion, of the votes for railway construction purposes in Otago. At the same time, as if to restore the balance, as it were, it may spend upon some other work more than the amount voted for it. Tho over-expenditure of the votes last year for the North Island Main Trunk line, the Midland railway, and the Ngahere railway furnishes illustrations of this.

It is for reasons such as these that the Public Work Estimates, in present circumstances, constitute a huge imposition upon the community. Tho settlers ■have beep hi this year to expect that a- sum of about £2,600,000 xill be expended within the financial year upon the construction,of railways, roads, and bridges. Wo hops they are beginning to realise that the Government h deceiving, them in so far as it encourages them to hope that there will be an expenditure of any'such sum or of any sum approaching it. It is probably idle to suppose that this system, which lends itself r:o readily to the practice of cheap electioneering devices by any Government that is ready to presume upon the credulity of the people, can be effectively reformed until another of the proposals of the Opposition is carried into effect—a proposal for tho .establishment of "a sound, and-assured, system of local government finance, with a view to the equitable distribution, and economical expenditure of public money in place of the present system of arbitrarily varied Ministerial grants and doles." But the community cannot, we believe, fail to recognise that tho whole system is vicious and indefensible, involving, as it does, a complete inversion of the relationship that fhould exist between Parliament and its executive, While the Government has contrived to acquire, in the manner we have indicated, such a. control of the. public finances as legitimately belongs to Parliament, it has also secured in another direction a. considerable extension of its powers. When it eamei into office its right to incur unauthorised expenditure wa.s limited to £100,000 per annum. The. statutory limit now stands at £150,000, and, by legislation which was brought down last session, but 'withdrawn with a view- to its reintroduction next year, an increase of the authority to £250,000 a, year was proposed. And tho Government exercises its authority much more freely now than formerly. In 1802-3, in Mr Balance's time, the unauthorised expenditure wa.s £35,919; ten years later, under Mr Seddon, it amounted to f 87,472; nnd in the. past iinancial year it actually totalled £122,017—a. tolerably substantial sum, it ■will be conceded, for any Government to expend without the previouslyobtained sanction of Parliament. The enactment that empowers the Government to incur unauthorised expenditure is, it may be mentioned, that in terms of which tho ''£-10 steal" was perpetrated by members in 1900. It is interesting, in this connection, to observe that the possibility of a further raid on the Treasury on the part of the parliamentary representatives of the public is, being foreshadowed. Mr LaureiiPou, whose chances of preferment to Cabinet rank aro being canvassed, bemoaned last session tho hardships that are inflicted upon a member who receives only £300 a year in addition to such other privileges as free travel on tho railway for himself and (during tho session) for his wife, free conveyance by steamer to and from the sittings of Parliament, the. enjoyment of tho right to despatch telegrams on public business at reduced rates during tho .session, and the enjoyment of Ministerial "franking" for his correspondence during tho same period. -Moreover, Mr Field, who is also a claimant for tho place that is to bo vacated by Mr Hail-Jones, lias declared that, if the- question is raised and if ho is re-elected, he will voto in the. now Parliament for an increase in the salaries o! members to £400 a year. The electors will probably take nolo of this matter and satisfy themselves regarding the views of candidates on the subject before recording their votes on the- polling day. Other .proposals by the Opposition which merit support are those that aim at the reduction of the duties on the necessaries of life and on the appliances required in the Dominion's industries ami nt the encouragement of land settlement on the, optional system. It is a curious circumstance that a Government- which now professes to bo "thefarmers' Government" should show so little concern for the. welfare of the primary industries as to tax the farmers in the way. it is doing upon so many cf , the implements of their calling. The Opposition recognising, as every thinking person must recognise, that the producing interests of the country, which provide nearly the whole of the goods j that arc cspo-ricd from New. Zealand,

iiro interests that .should be fostered as far as practicable, proposes to encourage them by freeing them from petty form? of taxation and by offering them such a security of tenure as they do not now posst.ni. The policy in the respects we have indicated and in others should command wide approval.