HIGH PRAISE

Southland Times, Issue 21832, 8 October 1932, Page 5

HIGH PRAISE

EXPENDITURE COMMISSION’S REPORT.

TRIBUTE FROM SIR JAMES PARR.

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter). Wellington, October 7. Praise for the way in which the Coalition Government had tackled its big task was given by the Leader of the Legislative Council, the Hon. Sir James Parr, in the course of his speech this afternoon on the Address-in-Reply debate.

The work of the National Expenditure Commission was eulogized by Sir James who deprecated the abuse of the Commission and said that no Royal Commission in his time had shown higher public service or had performed more meritorious public service. Some critics had said that the members of the Commission had not been competent and that the report was “not practical politics,” but it should not be a question of politics at all. It was largely a business issue. Could the country with deficit after deficit stand the expenditure? “I agree with the majority of the Commission’s recommendations,” he said. “Their report is a sorry tale of waste and inefficiency and in the main I believe it to be true. We are all to blame for it. The report will be the acid test of Parliament’s sincerity. Public costs must come down, departments must be reorganized. The people who are carrying the burden of the gruelling taxation and tens of thousands on the bread line will surely punish us if we fail to reform matters so forcibly indicated by the Commission. I take off my hat to the Commission for its grit, thoroughness and conscientiousness.”