Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7386, 15 July 1895, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING

GISBORNE, MONDAY, JULY.,IS, 1895. THE TREASURERJS MEMORY.

The Treasurer's attempt to explain certain statements he made in London prio r to the issue of the 3 per cent, loan i s utterly unsatisfactory. His speech from beginning to end is mainly remarkable for «* bluff," and hia absolute denial of having made gross misstatements proves one of two things. Either he has an extremely defective memory, or, having deliberately made inaccurate statements for the purpose of gaining the support of the London money-lenders, he is compelled to increase the enormity of his conduct by making fresh misstatements in ordor to save himself from the consequences of his rashness. Let us quote Mr Ward's own words, and fcheu our readers will be in a position to judge of how much reliance may be placed upon his veraoity :— Addressingthe Lon- From Hansard, No. don Chamber of Com- 11, July 25tb, 1894, morce on Thursday, p. 68 (debate on the April 25 (vide British Land Tax Bill) :— Australasian, p. 652), Mr Ward: I should Mr Ward said :— like to explain to the "Many of you, no House why ib is doubt, heard last year necessary to pass this that the Government Bill. In the first had decided to collecb place, I may state bhe Land Tax at an that we have Borne early period because £600,000 to provide it was hard up for for the payment of cash, which it re- interest; in London at quired to meet in- the end of October teresb falling due in next, and that to October. Now, gentle- enable that to be men, I will tell you done an earlier collecwhat the position waß, tion of the Land Tax and you can then is necessary. . . . judge as to whether Every year, I may ; it was a fair state- say, it has been necesment of what ac- sary in the Treasury tnally occurred in the to anticipate what is colony. required to be done by the House for the purpose of- enabling ; the tax to be col- 1 lected. .... We have not, and we sJiall not have, on the 31st of October svjfcient money in England for the purposes of in- . • terest.

Instead of being (Hansard, page 75. ) hard up for cash ac Mr Ward ;, The that time we had question is, whether lying in London, and or not we should we have got them collect money to send still, some £3,000,000 to London to meet worth of unpledged our engagements securities of New Zea- there. That is the land, against which at point, any moment we not Sir R. Stout ; If only could have raised you have the money the interest falling you do nob need to due, but could have collect it. got twice or three Mr Ward : Well, times the amount if it if we Jutd the money had been necessary to we should not, in the do so. (Cheers). . . ordinary course of: I have told you that things, be asking the we had at that time Hoxuse to do what we a large amount of are doing. unpledged securities Page 76 : The Land here, but in addition Tax is necessary for to that we were not* the purpose of allowoverdrawn at our ing us to remit money i public account, to London to meet o«r (Cheers). So, with engagement,? at the regard to the state- end of October. Those incnb that was dis- honorable gentlemen, seminated here that instead of allowing us New Zealand was at to do this, want to that time hard up for see a stop put to all 1 cash, I can only say public works, and that the man who they want us to take wrote the article had the ordinary money a diseased imttgiua- whioh has been set tion, which led him apart for carrying on to gross distortion of these works and to the facts (cheers), and devote it to another facts which without purpose. trouble could have bean authoritatively obtained ftf the tifne,

From the above ifc will be seen that when the Treasurer wanted the Land Tax to be collected in advance he urged scarcity of money as a reason, but when this was thrown up at him in London he said that that was not the reason at all — the colony had plenty of unpledged securities. Moreover, it is clear that the Treasury whs short of cash, as the Treasurer smd that unless the Land Tax was collected it would be necessary to issue more Treasury bills, which was the same as borrowing. Had this course been followed it would have been similar to the man who failed to provide for a promissory note when it became due, and was compelled to renew it. Mr Seddon (we quote from the same number of Hansard, page 83) said : — " I say it is better that the Colonial Treasurer should take the trouble he has. gone to now and state that we wanted the money so as to be able to pay the demands upon us. That is the position, and it is better to be able to do that without going to any banks asking for accommodation." But the statement of the Treasurer in regard to the Land Tax was not the only one, by many, to which exception can be taken. He informed the London Chamber of Commerce {vide British Australasian, page 652) :— We were then satisfied that the surplus would exceed Jthe amount I had forecasted ten months before. That was a surplus of £341,940. When I made that statement publicly, I advised the people in the colony that I was so certain of the accuracy of the statement I had made that I was prepared to stake my reputation for all it was worth that our surplus would be over £350,000. I was confident it would exceed £380,000, but I purposely kept the amount at £350,000 as a matter of prudence. The results, which were telegraphed here, gave a surplus to the colony on March 31st of £430,000. (Cheers,) Our readers, knowing that the declared surplus on the 31st March was only LlBO,OOO, can judge the value of Mr Ward's reputation from his own figures. He was certain there would be a surplus of L3£fO,ooo, but as it only actually amounted to a little over half that sum, they will be justified in concluding that Mr Ward's reputation is over-valued nearly 50 per cent., and after comparing his statements in the House in July 1894, and in London in April 1895, regarding the collection of the Land Tax, it is a question whether his veracity should riot be subject to the same liberal discount."