THE INDICTMENT OF THE MINISTRY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2077, 26 July 1890, Page 4

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MINISTRY.

' (Speech delivered by Mr Hutchison, M.HJEi, in the House of Representatives, July 3, 1890.)

(Continued.)

; In the first week of the session o that year I took occasion to ask th e ;Colonial Treasurer what assistanc 6 :had been given to the Board and the means by which that money had been provided. The Treasurer stated that ;he had advanced £690 against rates on Native lands, and £2,200 against the ;25 per cent. o£ the land revenue. ; Feeling somewhat doubtful as to the security of the colony in relation to that advance, I pressed the Colonial Treasurer, after he gave the answer to ! the question on the Order Paper, as to whether he was satisfied of the position of the colony in making that advance. The,answer he gave was that he \vas assured there was no doubt whatever as to the security of the Government. On being still further pressed as to whether the G-overnment bad taken the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown on the subject, he replied that the ©overnment had done so before making the advance. Now, one or two things have occurred : either the Treasurer spoke without being carrect or the Law Officers of the Crown have changed their opinion ; for now we are told that other moneys since advanced under similar circumstances are not likely to be recovered. Reverting now to the point at which I digressed,; and dealing with what occurred in the Public Accounts Committee, I am now ! going to refer to something that is not to be discovered by hunting up the archives of the colony, but to something { which is in print and which was circulated, but only for the infermation of those gentlemen who composed the Public Accounts Committee. I refer to a letter, dated the 12th July, 1889, from the A gent-General to the Colonial Treasurer. Although no previous correspondence is set out, the letter clearly indicates that it was called forth by a communication from the Colonial Treasurer to the AgentGeneral, —that the letter was probably written upon the lines indicated in a communication from the Colonial Treasurer. In that letter the AgentGeneral tells the Colonial Treasurer that "the opinion generally" in London is that default by the New Plymouth Harbour Board would have no more than " a transient effect." Remember that it was known that this Board was in difficulties. The Colonial Treasurer had himself announced the fact, and his announcement is reported in Hansard : for 1888. And remember, too, that the payment of the Board's interest would not fall due until more than a week after the conversion was to have been effected. The letter goes on to say this—and I will use the very words themselves : It advises, with reference to the Board, that the colony should " tide over the next dividend somehow, as a pure matter of expediency." Here is our high-toned Agent-General putting it on the ground of " pure " expediency that the Government should do something to deceive the moneyed public in London! What are we coming to ? Is this the Government of sound finance? Is this the Government of high morality ? jls this the Government of faultless I Dromise ? It was bad enough for the A gent-General to propound such a thing, but worse for the Colonial Treasurer, who was also Premier, to adopt that advice, print this letter, circulate it amongst the Public Accounts Committee, and get something from that Committte, which, according to the Minister the other day, warranted the Treasurer in advancing £4,992. That there was any warrant, any authority, for doing so, no one who considers the matter for a moment will dare to assert. What is a Committee but a few gentlemen delegated by this House to inquire into and report on a matter, whose recommendations can, until this House has adopted them, have no weight or authority? And yet in that Committee, if lam correctly informed, by some juggle —by some proposition that this money should not be advanced and then by " the previous question " being carried—the Colonial Treasurer took upon himself to advance the cash to the New Plymouth Harbour Board. That is what occurred. The loss of the money is not the most serious part of the matter. We, perhaps, can afford to lose this£s,ooo, but I doubt whether we can afford tolose tbo good name of the colony in connection with its finance. What was this letter written for but to enable the Colonial Treasurer to write Home to the AgentGeneral to promulgate on the Stock Exchange that the next payraeut by the New Plymouth Harbour Board would be duly made? We thus see the Agent General of the colony fussing about London and assuring people that the N6W Plymouth Harbour Board is all right! Dealing now with the coaversion-loan in connection with which this advance to the New Plymouth Harbour Board was made, we find that the Loan Agents of the colonv in London advertised for tenders for" £2,700,000. The exact

sum required for meeting the two loans was £2,595,300, so that the loan for which they aßked the public to subscribe was £104,700 over the amount actually required to discharge the old indebtedness. Now, in the Financial Statement we are told that the Loan Agents have actually taken £70,000 m addition, or, in all, £2,770,000. I am not sufficien,tly acquainted w^h

such matters to know whether or not it is usual, when a specific sum is asked for, to take more than the subsribera have been informed was intended to be taken. Compared with £2,7000,000, the turn of £70,000 is a trifle; but if once the practice is allowed there is no limit to which it might not;be carried. Why not accept ;e vey .tender sent in, as .well as those If pi* £70,000 more than advertised for ? Does it , not, reduce the sec urity of those who have tendered on the basis iof. £2,700,000 to take from them £70,000 more ? The Colonial Treasurer, in his Financial Statement, said that/,..;{The,, papers ,to the negotiation of this loan will at onee be laid before. . But they are not yet on the table, „ and ,1 shal I look /.with a,,considerable .degree of interest fqr the explanatipn of tbjs last financial operation by our Loan, Agents in London. One,.;more; reference to the Bank of New Zealand and I have done. Honourable gentlemen, looking at the '« Abstract of the Revenue, and Expenditure of the Public A ccount " for the financial year ending the 31st March last, will see a sum of £BOO,OOO shown as " Remittances to London.'' That seems to haye been remitted this year, although there was a considerable sum which we might call " free money ", in London, under the head of " Advances," as well as the large uninvested balance already shown to have been lying at the credit of the Public "Works Fund, but which certainly was equally the property of this colony and surely available i for temporary purposes. However, £BOO,OOO was in transit from this colony to London on the 81st March. That was an unnecessarily large sum, seeing that the interest and sinkingfund payments, due in April, did not exceed £600,000. In 1887,—and the distinction and comparison between the administration of that,, time and the administration of the present are somewhat instructive, —there was nothing in transit from this colony to London, A balance was there which was used for the temporary purpose of paying interest and thus saving exchange. In the first year, of this Ministry being in ; office, bowever, there was, on the 31st March, £200,000 in transit to London; last vear, on the corresponding date, there was £557,000 in transit; and this year there was £BOO,OOO, Now, Sir, there is only one other topic I would touch on. The honourable member for, Waipa has gone througn this Statement and he has derived —I will not say comfort but —a certain amount of consolation, because he gathers that it is here and there stated that we will have no more borrowing.. I say it is only necessary to look at the tables attached to the Financial Statement to see that there is an absolute necessity, almost at once, for raising money —not to be spent in the colony, but j for meeting engagements in London, [ for transactions calculated to teßt the credit and strain the resources of the colony as much as any previous transactions. I have referred to the scheme for the conversion of the loans last year and suggested whether or not it was expedient then to raise the £2,207,300 to meet the ten-forties ; that if it were not necessary the Colonial Treasurer might have waited until an equally or a more favourable occasion offered itself.

(To be continued.)