Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WED., NOVEMBER 9, 1927. A DIFFICULT TASK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16492, 9 November 1927, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WED., NOVEMBER 9, 1927. A DIFFICULT TASK

No one can envy Mr. Bavin and his Ministry the* task that they have before them in straightening out the finances of New South Wales and in setting that State on a path of sound administration. Mr. Bavin, however, is a man of very sterling, character, in whom the. people have confidence, and he is assisted by able colleagues, particularly at the Treasury, where Air. B. S. Stevens, a former Secretary to the Treasury, who was somewhat disgracefully removed from office by Air. Lang, holds sway. Air. Stevens’ name has become known throughout the Commonwealth, on account of the stand he has recently taken for administrative reform and his desire to see the State of New South Whales conducted on decent lines. Air. Stevens has no easy task in reorganising .the finances. When the last Nationalist Government, of which Mr. Bavin was a member, went out of office it left 4,385,000 behind it. Its successor not only dissipated all that but raised a lot more in new taxes and brought out £1,000,000 from London. It leaves £530,000 and commitments the extent of which strike the new Treasury with dismay. Towards the end of the last Government’s term the State was over-spending its income at the rate • of; £2,474,000 per quarter, with the pace getting merrier and merrier. The new Government must honor the bills its predecessor has run up. No' matter what the debts may have been incurred for they cannot be repudiated. “People,” says the Daily Telegraph, “talk unctuously about responsible government. What it means is that the taxpayers arc responsible for meeting any liabilities that irresponsible Ministers , may ( contract. ’ ’ The new Government’s problem will be to square up its predecessors’ accounts without the aid of new taxation. The people are already burdened with taxes to an extent that is hampering industry and depleting the only source from which faxes can be got". The Government, has set its face against increased taxation but intends to proceed at once with a scientific review’ of the present incidence of taxation, and is inviting the co-operation of public bodies, commercial and professional men in this task. An alarming feature of taxation generally is that in less than two years the per capita increase was from £2 Is 5d to £3 6s I Id. The Government, intends to complete unfinished public works, in which a great, deal of public money is now' lying idle and so to make them reproductive as soon as possible. These w’orks include the Sydney harbor bridge, electric railways, and water and sew’erage schemes. Between £30,000,000 and £40,000,000 is required for this purpose. During the next ■three years nearly £11,500,000 in public loans will have to bo renewed, probably at an increased rate. So that with a lean Treasury, the problem of meeting financial obligations in the next few’ years must be extremely difficult. Mr Stevens, however, assured the public in his first speech after his appointment to Cabinet, that' though the Government could make no rash promises it could assure the State that .there was no reason for panic. One thing he promised was that thero should be a simplification of the public accounts., “I am not saying anything derogatory to Air. Lang,” be added, “but there is a very definite, need that, whatever Governments do, the public accounts shall tell the truth.” Tn regard to railways, Air. Stevens said it. was not intended to make a fetish of “making them pay.” Railways were■ an important factor in the development of the State, and while every effort, must be made to make them profit-earning, the question whether railway undertakings should not be assisted from the general revenue would have to be taken into consideration.” That is a point, which is often overlooked in New’ Zealand. We hear people say that work on the Napior-Gisborne railway should be discontinued because it will not be possible to make it pay. People who make this assertion take a very narrow and short distance view’ of the matter. Railways are constructed for the benefit of .the State as a whole; they are the arteries of commerce, the channels for development, and without them the country could not progress. Tho East Coast railway is a natural - and necessary complement of the North Island system. Turning back to New South Wales, the clean-up that the Bavin Ministry has to engage in is confined not merely to finance. Tho suspension of the present municipal government of Sydney is one of the earliest reforms to which the new Government will address itself. It is necessary only to repeat Mr. Bavin’s own words in his electoral appeal, which on this point alone earned him many thousands of votes. “The .present condition of city government,” he said, “is a disgrace to tho State. The methods of the predominant faction in .the City Council have rendered tho very name of city government a byword all over Australia. ... At the earliest possible moment we shall . . . place the government of the City of Sydney under the control of a commission of the ablest men available . . . with power to carry' off the government of Sydney until the passage of a Greater Sydney Bill, which will bo passed into law at the earliest possiblo moment.” Mr. Bavin has made good his promise by introducing on the first day of the session ft Bill to place Sydney municipal affairs under the control of a commission forthwith. Another pressing reform is “the placing of tho administration of the electoral law under an independent commission, free from Alinistcrial influence,” the adoption of tho Federal electoral rolls, and “the realignment of the electoral boundaries on the basis of three State electorates to each Federal electorate. ” A third early reform indicated by Mr. Bavin is 'that of Parliament itself. “Our first duty will be to rehabilitate Parliament, and .t.o make it secure against future attacks.” The essentials ho regarded as the preservation of a reformed second. Chamber and “the restoration to the Assembly of the function, of which it has been deprived, of fully considering and discussing legislative proposals.” Both National and Country party leaders agreed that the principles of Upper House reform should be the establishment of an elective basis.limitation of tenure, tho scheme to be. endorsed by popular referendum. These were 1he f three chief reforms laid down, and all marked as urgent. Other matters to be dealt with include tho co-operation of the State (denied by Mr. Lang) with the Federal Government and .tno other States in the Loan Council; the British immigration agreement; railways and tramways to bo placed under f separate control; the mapping out of

ft programme of useful public works, the extension of the functions of local, government authorities; and a review of the public service. As regards, certain appointments to high public offices, “some of the appointments made by the Lang Government have been made in such flagrant defiance of the rules of public decency, and have been so grossly unfair to other members of the Fublic Service, that we shall reserve to ourselves the right to review these appointments,’’ said Mr. Bavin. The possibilities of retrenchment have to be thoroughly explored, and it is anticipated there will bo a careful overhaul of staffs to see the extent to which, they have been expanded in the process of {hiding employment, for Labor supporters. In llie realm of arbitration and ,thc basic wage system the provisions of the child endowment measure arc to be revised, and the constitution of the arbitration tribunal altered. It is held that the basic wage should not be left to one man to decide as at present. Delimitation of .the spheres of Federal and State industrial jurisdiction has also to bo made. Altogether it will be seen that the new government of the mother State is likely to have its hands full for some time to come. It is composed, however, of men of-high integrity, comparatively young men, full of vigor, and determined to make good.