THE BUDGET DEBATE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 38, 29 September 1911, Page 2

THE BUDGET DEBATE.

o WHAT MR J. B. HINE HAD TO SAY. The following is the continuation oi Mr Hine’s speech published yesterday . Perhaps the Minister of Agriculture will make the same sort of speecn in regard to this that he did at the Chamber of Commerce in Palmerston North, when Mr Beauchamp, Chairman of the Bank of Now Zealand, raised the ire of the honourable gentleman, and the Minister went up to Palmerston North and delivered • a policy speech on a most ineonvonfei,! occasion—took advantage of his position as Minitcr of Agriculture to weary the people at a gathering of holiday-seekers—and I believe there has been a hint sent round since that no more speeches arc to be given in future at agricultural shows at that, particular place. The honourable gentleman took Mr Beauchamp to task lor having given a timely note of warning in regard to the stringency oi the New Zealand money-market. But particularly what the Minister took exception to was the drop in the exports of the Dominion. Now, as Minister of Agriculture, he should not have taken as a personal affront any drop in the exports. ;Ho is not responsible for the weather, nor for the fact of stock dying, and he should not make a personal matt.er of these circumstances. Mr Beauchamp put. it on record that there was a groat discrepancy between the amount .required to pay our interest bill and the margin between exports and imports, and I. do not think tjio Minister will deny that. Well, I will take his silence for consent to that. The gentleman to whom I have referred pointed out that there was a deficiency of £2,310,000 between interest requirements and the surplus exports of our Dominion. The Hon. Mr T. Mackenzie: For the year ? Mr Hine: I presume for the year. The Hon. T. Mackenzie: For what year? •/' Mr Hine: I am talking now about the year which ended on the 31st March, 1911. Mr Beauchamp also stated that the coming year promised to be one of low prices, supporting bis conclusions upon a drop in values of 25 per cent. in the United States and a downward tendency of the markets in England. Now, Sir, I think 1 have .said sufficient about the’financial position of the Dominion, at any rate. The Hon. Mr R. McKenzie: Do you understand it ? Mr Hine: Yes, I understand what I have stated; hut I am afraid the Minister does mot understand it. I think he took advantage of his chief’s absence to contradict a statement that his chief had made, and I believe the best thing for him to do would he to apologise to, his chief. Now I will go on to the -question of roads and bridges, which .is more in the' honourable gentleman’s line. In an earlier stage 1 .how,,much had been spent by the present ,Government as compared with the previous,; Government, which is very much to the disadvantage of thp present Government. I will go a little further into the matter now. T will show how much has been expended since what is known as the Ward Administration took office—that is to say, since Sir Joseph Ward formed his Cahj.net. Now, t!n\ is a table giving the amounts that since 1907 have been voted for roads, together with the amounts that have been expended, and the proportion of votes non-expended each year. In 1907 there was a sum of £523,833 voted; £355,897 was expended, and £167,960 was not expended. Mr Russell: The Government wore not extravagant that year. Mr Hine: No, they were not at all extravagant. Wait till we got to the buildings table and you will see where the extravagance was. I will put in the whole table. Expenditure on Roads and Bridges during the Ward Administration. Voted Expended Non-ex-

We come now to the hackblocks vote, for which £1,000,000 was borrowed on tli6 eve of an election for the purpose of loading. This money, the Minister said, would lie expended at the rate of £250,000 per annum, and how lias ho carried out his promise;-' Only in one year—l9o9—was die £250,000 voted, and that was just previous to an election. Hut out of the £250,000 voted that year only £190,191 wa expended, leaving £58,)0t unexpended. In 1910 the sum voted was £210,200, and the amount expended was £132,468, leaving unexpended £77,701. Last year the mm vot’d was £200.720. of which £85,'208 was expended, leaving £115,181 unexpended. It seems to me die Government always keep sometiling up their sleeves for the purpose )f appeasing the electors.

The Hop. Mr Bucldo: What about the lofiil bodies that get the authorities and did not undertake the work H Mr ffliue; The loeal bodies do not 'omo into the argument at all. 1 ■all attention again to the figures I lave quoted and J say that if members >n the (jloovrnmont side had any backbone they would not put up with the date of tilings f have shown. They vould not put up with an expenditure it only £85,000 out of a vote of 1:2:10,000 for the baekiilocks. Out of the £1,000,000 borrowed for reading in the backblocks, only £80!),000 lias been expended, leaving £090.000 to be expended this year if the Minister is going to keep faith with the electors and spend all the money within the four years—the time lie stated it would >e spent. It. is not possible to ex-

pend this Sum in t!io six montlis of tlio year that are 1011, and therefore 1 repeat that in this the Minister has not kept Faith with the people.

Mr Russell: You wanted too nine! of it in your district.

Mr Hine: Ami it could not he spent in a hotter district. There is one other item in the comparison table I must refer to, and it is for the benefit of the .Native Minister. We find in the comparison table—and I can foresee this table will he hawked about the country at electiofi time to show the country the non-interest-hearing expenditure during'the regime of the present Liberal Government—that there was expended on the purchase of Native lands during the period previous to the entry of the present Minister into office the sum of £!,- 516,000. The difficulties in the way of purchasing Native hinds were just as intense thou as they arc to-clay—iu fact, there were greater obstacles in those days than exist now; and yet what do wo find has been spent in the purchase of Native lands since 1891— since the great Liberal Government came into power? Under £1,000,000 —£915,167 out of the total amount, borrowed for the purchase of Native lands.

Mr Russell: Why not add the £6,000,600 spent on land for settlement ?

Mr Hine: That has nothing to do with Native lands, and, to my mind, that money would have been far belter spent on Native lands.

Mr .MacDonald u What" about private dealings for ■ lehse afid tedle? I . »■ Mr Hine: That l hasbiothing to do with the State HkiyingA Has it not been brought ivdry prominently under our notice during the last fehv weeks how private dealings are carried out? Is not a Commission of Inquiry ing at the present time' to 'find out why the GovernnUmtdid n'ot buy certain land when they had the opportunity? And they Iliad the money in hand for it. i' Tlie Government have nob utilised the money that has been voted for the purpbse of buying Native lands for some time, even though the land was ottered to them. They lost their opportunity,' and, of course, the Dominion as a whole is the loser, f want to say here a few words about the. Native land question. To ray mind, one of the greatest and most necessary considerations at the present time is the Native lard question. If we look up the Year Look wo find tliat in 1909 there were 7,-100,600 acres owned by Natives, in New Zealand, and that area was distributed throughout the Dominion as under: in Auckland, <1,677,000 Acres; Hawke’s Bay, 1,493-,666 acres; in Taranaki, 312,000 acres ; in Wellington, 1,513,00Q; and in Nelson; 41,000 acres; making a total of 7,417;930 acres. These figures are. taken ’from the latest statistics I can obtain. lam not in a) position* to say what is the position to-day; hut of course l the Government arp ; to blame for that, because they have -mot, (published'- any figures 'since 1909,'and'even in that Year Book there, is' a-hbte to the effect that thefigures afdl A*'repetition*'"'of those of the previWuS’' year, because no later figures were''available.' j'diit of that 7,400,000'acres, a very little under 2,000,000 acres are leased to Europeans, leaving in the hands' of the Natives 5,511.018 acres. What 1 want to know, and the country tvants to know, too, is, what is going to ho done with these millions' of acres? •We find that the Natives in a small degree are farming a limited area of fit. By the census of 1900, which gives the latest figures ’ in regard to Maori stock returns, wo find that they have 252,000 sheep, 51,000 cattle, 42,000 pigs, and 40,000 acres under crop. If I give a pretty liberal estimate of the carrying capacity of fids Native land at one sheep to the acre and ten acres to a beast—one sheep to the acre and one Head of cattle to every ten acres—you will find that-'tliat v. ill account for something like 300',0df) u acnis under' cultivation by the Maoris. Then the cropping lias to be added on to that, which is estimated at 40,000 acres; and to allow for the grazing of horses we will take about fifty per cent of the above acreage, or, on a broad basis, 500,000 acres for settlement purposes, leaving-at"the present time 5.110.018 acres, or in round figures, 5,000,000. Aswl. ;just'now, these figures are not given by the Minister of the Crown : they aye taken from the official records that .we have .up to date. Now I, am going to quote the Native Minister. We find tliat the Hon. Sir James Carroll, when he was speaking down in Invercargill—in June last, I think it was—stated that the area owned by the Natives was 6,018,371 acres. Of this, 3,916,342 acres was in profitable occupation, leaving 2,102,029 acres unoccupied. Now, I say that when the Ron. Sir James Carroll’s figures appear in a Parliamentary paper, and arc vouched for by the officials who had .the, preparation of these departmental papers, we could place some reliance -on-them ; but until the Minister is prepared to put them into Parliamentary form I, for one, am not gong to accept the statement that they have suds a huge amount of land under cultivation in the North Island. Looking at the Year Look of 1910, we find the Government spent t!ic magnificent sum of £31,890 in Imying Native land, and they acquired 15,588 acres to be thrown open to the public. Now, sie.ee the inauguration of the land for settlements policy in 1891 they have spent in buying land for settlement under the settlement conditions—not from the Natives, remember, but from file pakclia—they have spent £5,407,792 in acquiring lands which were settled before. J am not going to say anything against the land for settlement scheme, hut ,i say this: the first concern of any Government of this Dominion should bo to pay attention to lands that arc bringing In no revenue whatever. 1 refer to the Maori lands which were lying waste —worse than waste, because they

became breeding' grounds for noxious weeds and rabbits., Why did-the-Government not direct their attention to the acquirement of these lands? Mr Russell: Is the Opposition uidvoeatiug the dropping of the lauds for settlement policy ?

Mr Hine: 1 say, No; not by any means, i am merely advocating alongside of it a more vigorous policy in the settlement of Native lands, and The bringing them under Crown lands conditions wherever possible. And, then under Crown hinds conditions classification would be set up. The Hon.'Sir J. Carroll: The same old cry. Mr Hine: The Minister of -Native Affairs does not like criticism of any sort. He believes in the Taihoao policy. Jam prepared to show you in a few minutes the greatly enhanced value the Natives are reaping in this Dominion through the opening-up of 'Crown hinds, the acquirement of lands under the Land for Settlement Act, and the prosecution of public works in Now Zealand. If we look at the Year Book for 1895 wo find that the area of Native lands in their hands was then between nine and fen'million acres. In 1888Nhe value of that land was set down at £3,000,000 sterling. The Year Book for 1895 goes in to say that probably the land has not. increased in value very much, but if we turn to the same topic in the Year Book of 1910 what do we find? We find a remarkable change, in regard to the Native lands. We find that, although the area has lesseneu to a certain extent, the value has gone up enormously. The value, with improvements, exclusive of the lessees’ interest, on the 31st March, 190 S, was £11,413,545, the area then being about 7,500,000 acres. During that period the area of Native lands had decreased by something like 25 per cent., whilst the value of the land had increased by something like 300 per cent in about fourteen years.

Mr Russell: What are you -quoting from ?

Mr Hine: From the 1910 Year Book, page 612. Now, while the value of the Native land has increased to tips enormous extent the Maori pays practically nothing towards taxation. He pays nothing by way of land-tax, and, apart from beer duty, tobacco ditty, and a few other items, he pays nothing towards the development of the country. Yet we have the Government at the present time prosecuting pub-' lie works, building and mak-

ing roads, and otherwso developing the country, while the Maoris'lire reaping the benefit. It is all. very well for the Native Minister'to get np—-as ho has done before, and will, do again no doubt—and say, “Wo have the pakeha landlord; why not have the Maori landlord?” 1 say both are dangerous, and I, for one, do not want to see either of them. The Hon. Sir James Carroll: Would you like to nationalise the land? Mr Hine: No. You could not tajio a more backward step than to nationalise the land.

Aii Hon. 'Member :’ ! How do yoiLproT- ; pose to acquire the Native lands ? Mr Hine : Why, buy them, of "cdurse. An Hon. Member: Compulsorily? Mr Hine: Yes, if necessary; provided there is a sufficient area left to the individual Maori. Ido not propose to cheat the Maori of anything. I would apply the, proceeds of the sale of the Maori lands to the improvement, felling, fencing, and stocking of the Maroi’s farm, and in educating him generally into a useful citizen. The great argument that is raised by the Liberal Party against the Maori being allowed to sell his land is that he will spend all his money in liquor straight away, and become a burden on the State . That is the great argument, and it is necessary,"' therefore, that there should be some safeguard—some kind of control of the Maori. Ho should be taught, if possible—and'l believe it is possible—to become a useful citizen. Some of the Natives in Taranaki have proved themselves to be useful citizens and capable of doing useful and profitable work for themselves and the country. This is especially noticeable when the pinch comes, when they are compelled by adverse conditions to work for their living. lam confident, Sir, if the House would'' only appiv itself to the settlement of the. Native lands and to the question of land settlement generally, and lot go a tot of this fal-de-dali flummery we see in the Budget now before us—this vote-catching political business, as it has been rightly termed—we should he doing far hotter work for the Dominion of New Zealand at the present time.

/ £ £ pended. £ 1907 ... 523,833 355,897 167,960 1908 ... 518,763 333,696 185,731 1909 ... 630,625 494,974 141,651 1910 ,... 477,810 343,344 131,465 1911 ... 596,685 255,983 340,701 Total unexpended £970,508