The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1928. POLITICAL TOPICS

Southland Times, Issue 20633, 3 November 1928, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1928. POLITICAL TOPICS

So many of the United Party’s mines have been exploded that it is rather amusing to see the arrival of a new lot of ammunition. The latest includes the hydroelectricity schemes and the revelation of the political uses to which the sensational allegations about the Arapuni dam by Mr Holmes are to be put. Mr Downie Stewart dealt forcibly and convincingly, quoting the essential documents, with the events anticedent to the appearance in print of the allegations of a man with a grudge against the Public Works Department, and revealed enough to make the public cautious about accepting the scare stories as worthy of credence; but the allegations of Mr Holmes have been seized by the United Party critics as if they were proven facts, and in a day or so will be advanced as evidence undisputed of muddlement. Lake Coleridge is quoted as proof of the proper way to establish a hydro-electricity scheme, but Lake Coleridge was installed when construction costs were much lower than they are to-day and the development of it has been carried out under the Reform Government. Lake Coleridge was actually commenced in 1911 and completed in 1915 with a capacity of 4500 k.w., which has since been developed to 27,000 k.w. The experts were responsible for the original plan, and likewise for the later development which so largely increased the output of the Lake Coleridge scheme, but even that successful installation did not pay its early years. The hydro-electricity scheme for New Zealand is estimated to save 1,000,000 tons of coal a year, but it is obviously futile, because it is misleading to condemn the scheme before it is in complete operation. If the Lake Coleridge project had been examined in its second or third year of its operation the financial aspect would not have been so favourable as it is now.

One of the points made by Mr S. M. Macalister at his meeting on Thursday night was the evil of budgeting for a surplus. Mr Masters meeting the point that in addition to the £70,000,000 loan, the United Party would have to meet the outlay for public works, new schools, post offices, bridges, etc., declared that these would be met out of surpluses. Supporters of the United Party who hail its present programme as wonderful, have also condemned surpluses as evidence of faulty estimating in the Budget. Mr Downie Stewart’s Budgets have disclosed very close estimating, and the surpluses have been small. It has to be remembered that a large surplus must be drawn from taxation, or from excessive charges levied on the public. If a Minister of Finance expects to secure a large surplus he is drawing from the taxpayers too much revenue. It would be saner and more honest to budget directly for these public works. All over the world the appearance of excessive surpluses is condemned as the proof of faulty estimating, and when Mr Masters endorses this method of finance he is giving his approval to something which his own supporters have condemned.

In this election all parties are wooing the farmers assiduously, and both the opposition parties tell the man on the land that the Reform Party, which contains a higher proportion of farmers than both the other parties put together, has done nothing for him. A glance over the legislation is enough to disprove that, but two points alone need to be mentioned. During the last five years £26,692,969 has been lent to settlers and workers. The Rural Advances and Rural Intermediate Credit Acts passed in 1926 and 1927 provide measures for economically and safely financing farmers without adding to the Public Debt. Since April, 1927, provision has been made in respect of 1,028. applications for advances under the former Act, amounting to £1,662,960, and under the Rural Credit Scheme, which has only been in operation for a very few months, a further sum of over £lOO,OOO baa been advanced. Frequently it is said that the Advances Department was dried up by the Reformers, but £26,000,000 in the last five years does not look like drought. And in addition there is about £2,000,000 under the Rural Advances Act and the Rural Credit Scheme, which has been in operation a few months. There are more small farmers in the Reform ranks than in those of the other two parties—the Southland seats may be taken as an example—and it follows that the need of the farmers should not be overlooked. What the Government’s opponents are trying to use is the discontent arising out of the economic depression which no government in this country could have averted.