REQUESTS FOR MONEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1924, Page 4

REQUESTS FOR MONEY.

PREMIER CALLS A HALT.

FINANCES NOT UNLIMITED. DEMANDS GREATER THAN EVER, Bj Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. “Please understand that the Consolidated Fund is not unlimited; there is a bottom to that fund, and if I am not •careful then there will be no Consolidated Fund left.” The above admonition wat. given by Mr. Massey to-day to a deputation from the Wellington Forestry League, which asked Riat some finance provision be made for purchasing further lands for State forest purposes.

Incidentally, Mr. Massey made an important statement as to the condition of the railway superannuation fund, for which he said £lOO,OOO would have to be found to strengthen it. There was no chance of doing anything else, and he could not allow the fund to come to grief.

After referring to the fact that that was the third deputation he had received that day asking for large sums of money, he said, referring to the Forestry Leagued request; “As far as I know there is not an acre of land in the neighbourhood; it is all private land. I don’t know how much your request comes to; I can’t tell. It makes me feel inclined sometimes to say you had better get someone else to look after the finances of the country. I can’t keep it in check; I never saw anything like it. “It hhs been a very good year, con-, sidering that it has been a dry year. We have done remarkably well. We will Uve to go abroad for two r*- three million bushels of wheat. We cannot avoid it. The people must have foodstuffs and we must have it. We will that money back right away; I am sure of that.” Mr. Massey said he would be quite will* ing to do everything possible to help forestry, but it must be practical. He was not going to be any party to wasting money; the country could not afford it.