AN ABLE VINDICATION.

Colonist, Volume XXVI, Issue 3481, 14 June 1882, Page 3

AN ABLE VINDICATION.

(From the Dunedin 2£c7io.) To those of our colonists who have been repeating the parrot-like cry that tbe Grey Government was extrava- ! pant, the perusal of the speech delivered by Sir George "Whitmore in tho Legislative Council will be moat instructive. It is true that in the House of Representatives Mr Ballance showed that the expenditure under the Grey regime was less than under that of the Atkinson rule-, but people did not or would not read hid tables or figures, and hence the need of reiteration ?ri a popular form of the facts and figure* relating.to the Grey rule. The speech ia too long to reproduce here, and we can therefore only draw attention to some salient point 3in it. Those who waut to become acquainted With tbe truth should read it. It is partly in the first and second numbers of " Hansard." / L What was the cause of the depression ia New Zealand? Colonel W"hifc-

more shows that.whafc now every one will admit, that the wave of depression —to use a meteorological phrase—was not confined to New Zealand. It was felt all over tlie Colonies, in England and America. How the finances of the Government became embarrased can be understood when we mention that the Land .Fund..-fell from £2,600,000 in two years, to £330,000 m two years, and the' Opposition had; prevented the Government putting <bn; taxation to meet a probable deficit. Their Beer Tax, their Companies Tax,' were both shelved. It is said the Government should have'lessened the , Public Workß expenditure. We reply it did so.' .In 1877 it aeked for a four ; million loan ; thia was reduced .by a vote in the Mouse, and the fact was that when the £1,000,000 '■ of debentures—lmperially guaranteed— were reduced, there waa not much over £2,00(3,000 left. ; To show that the expenditure by the Government instead of being increased during the Grey regime --fell, the followipg: figures will be instructive:—The Hall Government for two years—up to March 31, 1881, has spent in Public Works, in the year 1879, £1,750,000; in 1880, £1,950,000; in all, £3,700,000, and the balance left in March in the Treasury was £1,860,000, so that for Public Works expenditure the Hall Government had £5,5G0,000. They said they had an empty Treasury, aud that the five million loan was pledged. Colonel Whitmore asks.it1 this; statement were true, where did the £5,600,000 come from ? He says: Now, has the Government found the philosopher's stone, or has it been borrowing money illegally, or were the statements made by the enemies of the Grey Government untrue ? It must have been one or the other; either the Government must have been borrowing money without authority, or the statements they made were surely untrue. Perhaps the Ministerialists will tell us which horn of the dilemma they prefer. But we nave dealt only with what the Hall Government spent. The question may be asked, what did the Grey Governmenfc spend ? ifor their two years; of office they spent £3,073,000. That is, they spent in Public Works about £700,000 less than the liall Government. If this expenditure be contrasted with that of the Atkinson; Government during 1875-76, it will be seen the Grey Government lessened and did not increase the expenditure. Their expenditure for two years was £4,4:61,000; that is, -it was about £1,400,000 more for the two years than that of the Grey Government? And yet the Grey Government was wasteful, was extravagant, and ruining the country. As Colonel Whitmore very properly shows, the Atkinson Government, that ia the continuous Ministry for the Vogel, Atkinson, and Hall Governments have ail been Ministries for one side, have saddled the Colony with a debt; of no less than £22,000,000! And during the time the' Hall Government has been in office our public debt has been increased by no less a sum than --67,300,000. But let ua look at the ordinary expenditure. The total expenditure in 187G was .. £6,676,957 1877 „ .. 5,743,927 1878 „ .. 5,653,144 1879 „ .. 5,818,239 1880 „ .. 6,248,840 or an average of £6,000,000 per annum. JNow Major Atkinson said the Grey Government spent £11,500,000. If they had spent the average, or up t:o his expenditure, it would have been £12,000,000, And then the Grey Government had to spend £1,300,000, without any power to lessen ;it: We mean to expend this in addition to loan and interest expenditure. This sum £1,300,000 went as returned land fund and subsidies. On a former occasion we classified tha estimates, and we showed that what happens in England happens here, Let a Tory Government get into power and the expenditure and debt increases, and not. decreases. We think we have proved, and we feel sure those who read Colonel Wbitmore's speech will say he has proved that the Grey Government, instead of increasing the expenditure, lessened it and repressed ifc, even although the charges for interest had increased. If the figures we have quoted are wrong, we invite their correction. They are taken from official sources in reach of everyone, and we trust utit.il they are proved to be false the parrot cry of *' extravagance " will cease. We do not deny that Mr Sheeban spent som9 money he need not have spent, Bo did Sir Donald McLean, and so did, we venture to say, every Native' Minister who has held office. The difference betweeu Mr Sheehan's expenditure and that of hia predecessors was, it was audited and the succeeding Ministries, anxious to raise a cry to get rid of the Ministry, ransacked their private telegrams, ?nd published the Native Office accounts. However, even with the thousand or two Mr Sheehan spent the Governmental expenditure under the Grey regime was less than that of the previous or the succeeding Ministries. And now that this has been proved,, are we asking too much ot the Ministerial papers to either reply to Colooel Whitmore'e speech and the figures we have given in this article, or to try and adopt some other means to wage the warfare against the Liberal princi» pies they abhor.