HON. JAS. ALLEN

Southland Times, Issue 17627, 16 April 1914, Page 6

HON. JAS. ALLEN

SPEECH, AT MILTON. *400,000 SURPLUS FORESHADOWED. (Per United Press Association). MILTON. April I". The Hon. J. Allen. Minister for Finance. addressed a meeting of his con nituents to-night. There was attendance, although the night was wet aP 'The°Hon. Mr Allen, after the applause with which he was greeted had said that it was because of his constituence imd reposed m him for twenty .odd years that he was enabled to come to them as a -lints __sv,ni* v Crown, and with a fuller rcsponsffil' as a Minister of the Crown he would act like to take up their UmeinansnorIng some of the personal attacks mad on himself. He could not demean himself nor Ills audience by answering these personal attacks but passed them oter. knowing that there Wits no need for him to sav anything in defence of his actions.' Ho was satisfied to leave his return in their hands, whether they were his supporters or not. . AVhen the Reform party came into * office the Prime Minister had done him the honour to entrust him with the position of Minister of Finance. He was going to deal with finance, defence and the naval policy, and only with the-ae three questions. Later. he hoped to speak at Kaitangata. and then it would toe his business to take up the policy of the Government, as outlined in the first financial statement, and to show how far their promises had been fulfilled. They had been told that none of their promises had been fulfilled, but that was untrue, A great many had been f fulfilled, but he did not wish them to suppose that every tiling had been fulfilled, as that was not possible. There . .were yet things undone which lie hoped would be done if the people trusted the Government for another term in Parliament. There were yet things to ho done that would be done if the present Ministry was trusted for a longer period. FINANCE. He would first take up the question of finance. The finances of the country when lie look office were not in a satisfactory condition. He had laid before the public in the first financial statement the various accounts of the country, and it was the first time that it had been done in that shape. The balance in each account, and the liabilities and commitments of each account, had been plainly put before the public, and they were not challenged at the time and had not been challenged until lately. The challenge was that the finances were not so bad as they were made out to be, tout the facts were there and spoke for themselves. He was not going into any details of them. Those who cared to do so could read them in the financial statement. Another statement made was that they were left with a large balance in hand, and that there was plenty of money in hand, us a loan of £4.500,000 had been floated shortly before the present Government came into office, and if a loan like that had been floated within a few weeks of their coming into office there should' have been a large balance * available for the use of the country. They would imagine, said the speaker, that £4,500.000 having passed into the Treasury would have made things very rosy for matters of expenditure during the next twelve months, but what was the position ? He would go ’ back to March 21. 1912. just three or four days after Sir Joseph' AA'ard gave up, office and see what the position of the loan moneys was then. The Finance Minister of that day had his chance to float Lis loans in London and he missed it—deliberately missed it. He was advised to take the chance, hnt he took it not. He h'anded it 'to his successor <Mr Myers'). A few davs after Mr Myers took office lie found that the previous Minister of Finance had secured, toy vvay of temporary advances for the redemption of loans coming due. amounting to £870,500. and had pledged all the reserve fund securities to do this, and these securities were to meet any serious financial contingency. Every one of these reserve funds had been pledged to the money-lender in London to secure tem'J porary advances. Temporary advances • Lad also been secured on current expenditure amounting to £915.000. in London. At March 21 the position was that though no loans had been floated temporary advances had been secured for i 1.753.000. an.! that was the legacy left to -Mr Myers when he took office. He had done his best to float a loan, though he (the speaker) was not sure that Mr Myers hart not missel his opportunity of" doing so. Mr Myers, however, hart started on the same policy by securing temporary advances in anticipation of loans he was going to float at a future date, and a few days after he took office he bad to get temporary advances of another £5"","0", and during April or May he had to get another million added on To the timuiim raised by way of temporary advances during Sir Joseph AVard's last few months of office and during the short time Mr Myers was in office. That made a total altogether of £2.785.00". and not a halfpenny of a loan wa- floated to meet it. Then Mr Myers was in a position in which he had to float his loan whether he wanted to or not. As they knew .he had raised a loan for two years only. He (the speaker) as present Minister of Finance had to repay that loan now. That loan was for £ 4,5"0."00. out of witich had had to toe met immediately the £2.782>,000 which toad been previously pledged by way of advances. Out of that loan there was allocated to public works £1.326.000, but of that amount Sir Joseph AVard and Mr Myers had already raised by temporary advances a loan of £750.000 for public works, apart from that raised by debentures . Mr -Myers's loan of June 7, 1913. provided only £476,00.) for public works, and that brought him to consider the position of (lie public works fund on June 2". 1913. ten days prior to his taking office, when the cash in the public account of the public works fund was only £78,""0 and advances in the hands of the offices of the department was £321.000. A,considerable portion of these advances were actually

#xpdWded. hut the amounts had not been allocated to the various accounts. The lota! loan money received was £477.000, Thus it would be seen that the liabilities of the public works fxmd amounted

to £!.*> 19.'Mui. including. it was true, something on account of the Midland railway That was the position when the present Government took office. As a matter of fact the cash in the public works account, loan money accounts, *nd advances in the hands of the offices of the department was just about enough to keep the department going for three months, and it became necessary for him to make arrangements in his first financial statement. * He did that by transferring £750.000 from the consolidated fund account of the balance at the beginning of the year. At the beginning of the year the cash in the consolidated fund amounted to £770.000. but by June tnat had dwindled down .to £IBS,OOO. What was the position with regard to the local authorities branch ? The previous two Governments had committed the country to advances from that branch, ‘so tliat on July Jl. a few weeks after the present Government came into office, there were commitments amounting to £723.0h0. and to meet those commitments there way a balance of £M,OOO, or a debit of close on ££f>o,i>oo. That tujrden the Government had to bear up to the present day; it was no light burden and

though he claimed m particular credit t« himself he thought the administration of the country for the last two years or so could claim credit for the fact that all these liabilities had been ■wiped off and all the accounts put on a thoroughly .sound basis. (Applause). The public works fund was on a sounder basis to-day than when the Govern merit took office. T«he advances to settlers account was in a strong position, and the Board last month authorised advances amounting to £92.000, The advances to local authorities account, instead of Laving a debit of £659.308. as it had when the Coverninent took office, had a balance on .March 21 of £55.471. which, with half a million of loan money available, -made a total of £555,474. The commitments at the same lime amounted to £147,000, leaving a credit balance of £408,434. The position of the public works fund and the workers ‘ branch was also stronger now. It had been decided as from April 6 last to accept applications up' to £3OO t" redeem mortgages on freeholds, and if there were poor settlers who had properties mortgaged, up to £SOO. and these mortgage* were becoming’due and the

financial man wanted _to impose heavy rates those settlers toulcl go to tho advances office, which. If the security was sufficient,- would advance up to £SOO to meet the* mortgage... (Applause). .. The Minister pointed out that unexpected expenditure had occurred In the shape of £22,701 on account of the smallpox outbreak and £90,832 owing to the strike, and that these two things had so seriously affected the railway returns that the year yielded £178,000 less than the estimate, but notwithstanding all this.lt was especially gratifying to him to be able, to announce that the surplus for the year would be approximately £400,000 (applause), and the present Government could rightfully claim that the surplus was calculated on a sounder basis than any surplus of previous Ministries. NAVAL DEFENCE. .speaking of the cost of naval defence Air Allen said that nothing could he I gained in a discussion of such vast importance to the Mother Country and to the dominions by inaccurate or misleading statements on liie part of prominent public men opposed to the Government scheme, and where actual blunders had imaginations but had also made most palpable blunders in their statements as to the cost of the Commanwealth’s scheme, and where actual blunders bad not been perpetrated they bad made misleading statements, which unless Corrected might prejudice the minds of the public. The debate on the Naval Liefence Bill took place in Parliament on December 2 last and Sir Joseph AVard, criticising the proposaJs of the Government. drew attention to Admiral Henderson's report and to a report by Senator Pearce on the cost of the Commonwealth scheme and made the most inaccurate and misleading statements. Nor was there any excuse for him. because his speech was reported in the official journal—Hansard—a speech which he had the opportunity to correct and for which be was responsible to the public. He (Mr Allen) had never read In the speech of a public man anywhere so many errors as appeared in that speech. On nearly every page occurred blunders and misrepresentations. He had time to allude to only a few of them. On page 477 Sir Joseph Ward said ; "He (Admiral Henderson) estimates that the ordinary cost to Australia would be x 25,290.000." These figures over-stated Admiral Henderson's estimate by £2.000,000, the actual amount being £22.290.00". as shown in Admiral Henderson's report. At page 6*» there was also a misleading reference to tho ordinary eost. Tt was difficult to realise what the general public would have in their mind when reading the ordinary cost, but he felt sure they would not know that Admiral Henderson referred to tiie,estimated initial ebst of the whole fleet, extended over a period of twentytwo years. On page 478 of Hansard (December 2) Sir Joseph AVard said : -The annual cost for maintenance alone of a cruiser of the Melbourne class 'runs into £IOO.OOO per annum without •the cost of the personnel." This was .entirely wrong. Sir Joseph AVard had tnot understood the difference between a Melbourne cruiser and an armed cruiser like the battle cruiser Australia, and had quoted the maintenance of the latter. Admiral Henderson gave the maintenance of a protected cruiser as £25.000 per annum and not £IOO,OOO. as stated by Sir Joseph AVard, The Melbourne cruisers* were of this- type but somewhat improved. The most serious blunder occurred on page 481 in what purported ta be a quotation from Senator Pearce's memoranda. In his (Sir Joseph's) remarks he overstated the amount by £2.051,676. and the blunder lie had made was that he? had taken three years’ expenditure, and counted it as one year. Anyone referring to page t of Senator Pearce's memoranda would see the naval expenditure for 1912-12 was £2,24 9.357. and the figures Sir Joseph AA'ard gave as one year's expenditure included this amount, and the expenditure of two other years as well; but even if Sir Joseph AVard bad used the correct figures his remarks would ha-ve been misleading without explanation that the CormnonweaJth did not borrow money to construct its ships of war. hut built jhem out of revenue, and the estimate for 1912-122. namely. £2.249.257 included not only maintenance and general expenditure, but the construction of ships ■is well. Indeed, he had been informed by Senator Pearce himself that included in the £2.249.257 were sums of £1.196,809 for construction. £208,050 for works, and £175,000 for the naval agreement, leaving only £657.278 lor maintenance, personnel, and administration of naval compulsory training (they had over 2000 naval trainees), and all other charges. He had by no means exhausted the misstatements made by Sir Joseph AA'ard in his speech, but he could not afford to waste more time over them that evening.

At the Imperial <'onferer.ee in 1y 11 Sir Joseph Ward advocated a levy of 10s per capita for naval defence alone; that was to say New Zealand would provide over £*>oo.ooo for naval defence under his scheme. Further on in the conference he urged that the British dominions should provide £5.500,000 a year to buy three battleships each year: then on the second thoughts hesitated about building three each year out of revenue, and proposed to borrow fifty millions to contract 25 Dreadnoughts within five years from 1911. and he also proposed that three of these should be provided for Australia, six for Canada, three for South Africa, two for Now Zealand, one for Newfoundland, and te.n for the British Navy. That was in 1911. but in the debate in the House in 191 :i, lie again modified his proposals. Speaking on the Naval Defence BUI on December," (Hansard. page 4S:V) he said that he would like to see the Government come down with a fixed amount, and told the country: "We will give you- another Dreadnought at a cost to ns of £140,000 a year, including interest arid sinking fund, or give you still another at a further cost of another £140.000 with interest and sinking fund, and thus Die dominion would be a ware of its financial responsibility." When calc ilia ted this later proposal of Sir Joseph Ward's would find the expenditure to be. on tint present subsidy noo.ooo. cost of the present Dreadnought 11 40.000. cost of two more Dreadnoughts £250.00. or £.*1110.000 per annum, and in the wildest dreams of the present Government it had never sugge.ster. ami did not suggest such an expenditure as this under its proposals. New Zealand was now face to face with this problem: was it to go on paying to the Mother Country £ tot). 000 or some other sum every' year, and have ho voice whatever in the expenditure of the money, no, representation in the questions of peace or war, and no say in diplomatic relations or other matters? No self-respecting people could go on under such a condition of affairs, and it must come to us to have some direct interest in the expenditure of our own means. In these parts there were responsibilities and there was a trade to be looked after in New Zealand. There was private wealth whose value was estimated at 25S millions sterling, anti public wealth of a value of TS millions, or a total of 336 millions. Further there was a value of 4S millions of imports and exports. All that was worth looking after, and would anyone be satistied to have all that protected by a portion of a fleet in the North Sea or by an alliance with Japan'.' Or were we to depend for the protection of our trade and the protection of our homes on a treaty with Japan'.' The thing was not reasonable for a people who had now grown to manhood. and the Government conceived it to be its duty to do this. Instead of handing over £IOO.OOO a year to the Admiralty it would utilise that, money in training New Zealand hoys in a training ship, so that in time they would'he in a position not only to serve New Zealand but the Mother Country as well.— (Applause. i

Mr Allen also referred to the gross impropriety of a public man making such baseless and incorrect appeals to the, people as £>ir Joseph Ward did at Greymouth on January 11 last, as reported in the New Zealand Times, when he said: “They had carried a law to change the policy, and that men and women of New Zealand tyere no longer directly protected by the British Government.” The defence expenditure for 1513-14 was £483,000. as against £505,267 for the previous year, showing u decrease cif £22.267. so that it was. evident a tight hand was being kept on expenditure. and no one could say that the system was running awuy with tlxe authorities. Mr Allen announced (hat Captain' Hall-Thompspn. of the Imperial Navy, had been appointed to command the Philomel, and to act as Naval Adviser to the New Zealand Government. - Mr Allen also referred to. a few questions In a general way. and was heartily applauded on resuming his seat. It was resolved that a vote of thanks be accorded to the Hon. Mr Allen for Ins able and instructive address, and that this meeting expresses continued cotxfi-.

donee in }iim as member for Bruce, and in the Government in which be holds the responsible offices of Finance, Defence, and Education.