ANTI-GOVERNMENT

Southland Times, Issue 17427, 20 August 1913, Page 6

ANTI-GOVERNMENT

A CRITICISM FROM WALLACE. (Special to the Times). WELLINGTON. August 19The member for Wallace contributed his fleeting hour to the debate on the Budget in the House this afternoon. He was, he said, somewhat surprised that members on the Government side showed so very little interest in a Budget which was supposed to contain a tremendous' amount of reform. He had looked through the Budget for this wonderful reform, and he was in hopes that some members would explain it, but they had been so far very silent. Only two Ministers had thought their conception ■worthy of being explained to the House. The great needs of the country, he went on to say. arc access to the land, access to capital, and access to opportunity. There was a certain amount of provision made in the Budget in those three directions. but they had already been in existence before they were incorporated in the Budget, and the Budget contained no constructive proposals to grapple with the question of social betterment. There was no reference to the question of national insurance against sickness, accident. and invalidity, and references to important proposals were couched in language that could only be called exceedingly cryptic. The Prime Minister said that when he got into power the first Act he woi\ld wipe oft the Statute Book would be the Second Ballot Act. Yet a number of elections had been carried on under that Act. and the bon. gentleman, having lost the Grey election, was now probably in the mind to wipe that Act off the Statute Book. They were going to get piecemeal legislation in regard to local government. In regard to Labour legislation they were told that it was driving capital away from the country, and it was rumoured that if the then Opposition were returned to power they would repeal all the Labour legislation on the Statute Book. But when returning from the Old Country through Canada the Minister of Finance remarked to a newspaper reporter that the Labour legislation of New Zealand was in the right direction, and in the Budget there was no proposition to repeal any of this legislation, which was said to be driving capital out of the country and injuring the primary industries. "I want to know,” he said, “whether it is or not injuring our great primary industries.” He went on to contend that the people of New Zealand would never return to power a Government that favoured the creation of a local, navy. The whole thing was preposterous, and .tills country, which could not afford to meet its own needs in the way of roads, railways, and bridges, would be going in for a sheer waste if it took a plunge into the enormous expenditure of a local navy. Mr Massey : Who said that ? Mr Thomson : The Minister of Finance. Mr Massey : He never said anything of the sort. Mr Thomson : In 1909 he said that the time had arrived when New Zealand should have ships of its. own, manned by its own men. and paid for by its own money. The whole tenor of the hon. gentleman’s speech in Australia went in that direction, hut on returning to New Zealand the whole curre.nt of his thoughts was turned in another direction. As to the Legislative Council, he was not In favour of a proposal that was going to create another House that would dominate the people’s Chamber. He objected to the high expenditure on defence, and criticised the Government for Its continuance of the borrowing policy, to which it . had made so great objection when it was in opposition. He went on to complain that not a penny of the £BOOO voted had been spent on the Heddon Bush railway. The railways in Southland.' he said, . paid better than those in any other-portion of the country. Further, three farms had been purchased in Southland, and*he had been told by a farmer who knew every acre of the land, that two of those purchased were absolutely unadapted to closer settlement.