THE COLONIST. Published Daily-Morning. Nelson, Friday, May 19, 1905. A MINISTERIAL SPEECH.

Colonist, Volume XLVII, Issue 11336, 19 May 1905, Page 2

THE COLONIST. Published Daily-Morning. Nelson, Friday, May 19, 1905. A MINISTERIAL SPEECH.

The Minister for Trade and Cus- \ toms, the Hon. C. H. Mills, recently , addressed his constituents at Blen--1 heim, and after referring to last year's surplus, said that his hearers would be glad to know that the Colony's splendid financial position had been so well maintained that the Premier would this year be in the happy position of being able to announce to the House a surplus of half a million sterling. The Customs revenue increased last year by £30,655, and the Minister sad that the increase was almost wholly caused by a larger consumption of luxuries, the duty on spirits having increased by £10,427, that on cigarettes by £5625, and that on tobacco by £9551, leaving an increased extra collection of only £4972 on necessaries and other articles of luxury. He spoke, too, of the remissions that had been made in Customs duties by the reductions agreed to in 1895, and in 1900, and indicated that but for those reductions the duty collected between October 1895 and 31st December last would have been £1,691.352 more than it actually was.' He said that the principal items on which these remissions weie made, and the amounts remitted on them were:— Tea £573,115, kerosene £384, 820, wire fencing £127,134, currants and raisins £103,053, ricer£Bß,B9o, machinery for agriculture, dairying, mining and for woollen mills £63,470, patent medicines £47,518, wool packs £46,599, candles £46,385. Alluding to the Advances to Settlors' Department, of which he is also Minister in charge, Mr Mills said that up to the present advances amounting to £5,042,555 had been made, and he claimed that these had :

hoi pod some fifteen thousand settlers; to establish comfortable homes, andhad materially assisted in increas-j ing the exports. The advances in the several provincial districts were,.. | he said, as follows*— Wellington >.'fc2Y?V!j43, Otaep £1,087 185, Auckland £926,383, Taranaki £868, 449, Canterbury £328,670, Hawke's Bay £202,575, Marlborough £184,065, Nelson £59,045, and Weetland £48,640. The amounts repaid during] the last three years afforded, he said, convincing proof of the satisfactory position of the settlers, tn regard to the Advances to Settlers scheme, the Minister took advantage of the opportunity to state that "The Leader oi the Opposition showed that he did not know the provisions of the Act when he said in Auckland that he would go further and extend the advances to towns and cities* AS a matter of fact, such provision had been made in an amending Act for some years." Mr Mills said that Mr Massey opposed [the provision in Parliament.

A somewhat striking piece of evidence wias gitt"en by the Minister m support of his assertion that the people of New Zealand are year by year getting wealthier, when he showed that although nearly £100,000 of land tax had been lost to the Colony through tho purchase and sub-division of larger estates during the past ten .years-, the total amount of laud tax collected during that period had increased irom £271,394 to £352,853, and that the income tax had increased from £92,778 to £253,951.

So long as he stuck to statements of fact, the Minister for Customs was effective, for he showed that the Colony has made substantial progress, but having done that he descended to bombastical utterances relative to the district in which he is interested, and was guilty of making unfair comparisons at the expense of Nelson, evidently with the object of advancing an argument in favor of the making of a railway; along the coast line, which railway j will never be able to compete with steamers. He declared that the exports from Picton andjWairau are nearly three times as great as those from the port of Nelson. As a Minister, Mr Mills should know that only a very small portion of the surplus products of the Nelson district are shown as exports, inasmuch as some, such for instance as sheep, which go to freezing works outside of Nekon, do not appear as being shipped from Nelson, while a very considerable proportion of Nelson products are shipped to other parts of the Colony, ana consumed within its boundaries. -A mere table of exports from the Colony gives no idea of the production in the various parts oi' the Colony, and a man holding Cabinet rank should b 9 above trying to make it appear that it does.