DEFENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12844, 29 November 1905, Page 6

DEFENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT.

MR TWOMEY'S REPLY. To the Editor of the "Timaru Herald." Sir, —All tfee institutions which you say are failures are in their infancy, only two or three years old. Give them time. In any case, I -do not want to deprive you of the best of the argument in these trifles. Itwould not be fair to you to show that all the., accuracy was on my side'. I like arguing with you because you are so fair, and you give in when you can't help it. You liave now abandoned your assertion that the Government increased' taxation, and you only say they ought to have reduced it. You say that they have a surplus of. £761,000 and ought to have reduced taxation to that amount. I', find no fault with you for saying that, but I ask you to consider my view of the case. We are in this colonv like a man who has a farm, but no capital to develope it. If he takes a spade a plants a fe\f potatoes,; he : can'live: on it, but will grow rich. If, on- the other hand he borrows, money; fences and breaks up his land and sows it "with seed and stocks it with sheep and cattle, he -will make money and grow rich. We are just like that farmer: We have a magnificent farm in this-colony, but we want capital to develope its;, resources. We cannot open up the country without the' expenditure of money, and that money can only be obtained by borrowing. Now what does borrowing at 4 per . csQt. "mean? • Say,, that you borrow '£loo ; at 4per cent., in 25 -years - you. will have paid' £IOO in interest, ami, you will still owe the £IOO. : In one hundred years you will have paid ""£4OO, and still owe the £IOO. - Now, don't tou think it, would be well for. us to contract this, borrowing as much as possible ' /There are only two ways of contracting borrowing. -One is to . stop expenditure, and if you do that- you' will stop developing our resources proportionately. The other way is to tax ourselves, - have large surpluses, and obviate the necessity for borrowing to that extent. We had 761,000 surplus last year. That Can be .used instead of borrowed money. We have had transferred from surpluses to the Public' Works fund £4,655,000. ' That' -at ■ 4 per cent, would come to £162,000 a year. If we_ had borrowed that money £162,000 a year would be going to London in interest,\and in 25 years' we would ..-liave sent.' to London in the shape of interest £4,355,000 and still owe the £4,<555,000. In 100 years we would, send ,;£17,420,000 to London and still owe the £4,350,000. But we have not borrowed the £4,355,000. By wise and careful management, the Government have saved it out of revenue, and thus this colony will be over £20,000,000 the richer for it in 100 years. Mr Seddon in his Financial j Statement claims to have saved already £839,700, and' -reasonable beings will, I -think, agree with me that this is a. magnificent result, and that our .eternal gratitude/ is due to the Government who produced such a result. The tax we pay does not hurt us. We are growing rich and prosperous under it, and in my opinion we ought: to increase it eo as to double our present surplus and taper- off . borrowing. But there is the tax on the working man. What tax? He pays no tax on bread and meat and butter and eggs and tea. Surely that gives him a free breakfast table with the exception. of a half -penny in the lb for sugar, and if he drinks beer and whisky let hiin pay for them. And now let me recapitulate the facte which I have submitted to you. (1) This colony; was in a deplorably depressed condition when the present Government to»k office. (2) It was not the fault of the soil or the weather..,, During tie three previous years our export*? increased by £3,000,000 and this indicates extraordinary prosperity. , They were. years of poverty and misery. (3) 'Taxation then existent ..is.lpractically ;the same still; It used to leave a deficit every year. It has resulted in large surpluses since the management of our affairs was taken over by the present Government. (4) Out. of these surpluses £4,355,000 has been utilised in carrying out public works and borrowing to that extent obviated. -The colony will be over £20,000,000 richer because of this in 100 years hence.' (5) We are saving out of revenue 11£ per cent, more than we did ten years ago. That would enable us to borrow another £20,000,000 and this is further proved by : the fact that we have a surplus of £761,000 with which we could pay interest, I think we owe a debt of .gratitude to the Government who have produced these magnificent results. But yotx will say they are corrupt and give the spoils to the victors, they, bribe the constituencies and so on. One moment, please. i am supposed to be a staunch supporter of thein, a blind follower, and so on. Very well. Some printing had to be done in connection with the present election, and tenders were called for it. A cutting printer tendered and in one instance was a few pence below me • and he got it, and if you do not believe me, ask Mr Stubbs. Is that spoils to the victors? I asked Sir Joseph Ward to take my son as an apprentice to engineering into the Addington workshops. He refused to do so because mv son was nine months over the regulation '*ge. They could easily have reappointed ■ne to the Legislative Council, but thev have not done so. They have a peculiar way of corrupting me. Why do ~I stick

to -them? Because in 1884 as candidate for Parliaments: advocated the main planks of. the policy -which they have carried out. and which has- made this colony prosperous. It is to that lam sticking, not to them. Let them attempt to depart from that policy and they will not have a more strenuous opponent than I shall be. The Public- Works Fund is a bribery fund they say. If so why has not Mr Hall-Jones used it to bribe his own constituency? The cry against hint is tiiat he has done nothing for it. The reason is that Mr Hall-Jones is an honest man who has tried to do the honest thing in accordance with the oath he took when taking office. The very fact that his own constituents complain gives positive contradiction to this fiction about bribery. ! Every district in the colony is crying out— j " Give, give, give," and Mr Hall-Jones cannot satisfy all of them. He, no doubt, has done for his own constituents as much as he conscientiously could. In the Xortli Island Mr Herries, the most powerful member of the Opposition, boasted the other day that he got for his district £2. to the £1 the Native Minister, or the Minister of Justice got. Last election Mr T. Mackenzie, M.H.R. for VYaikouaiti, and Mr Fraser M.H.R. for Wakatipu, two other opponents of the Government, made similar statements. MiLang is another who is boasting of -what lie got. What- does this mean ? It means that regardless of any other consideration, the Government spend the money where it- is most needed, to develop the colony's resources. It also positively contradicts the baseless, senseless, vapid shriek about corruption. There is no such thing and this is incontravertibly affirmed by the factthat everyone who has tried to prove it by making specific charges has burned his fingers. Every inquiry has resulted in the Government being completely exonerated. * I am, etc., J- M. TWOMEY.