PARLIAMENT IN SESSION.

Western Star, Issue 1385, 31 August 1889, Page 4

PARLIAMENT IN SESSION.

THE MEMBER FOR WALLACE ON HIS PET SCHEME. Dr Hodgkinson during tbo debate on the Property Assessment Bill—tho debate in which the whole financial proposals of the. Government came under review—again urged the selling of the railways. The following abstract from his speech is takon from Hansard : The vary best thing we could do to relievo ourselves of this enormous burden of taxation, and to get rid of this property tax, would bo to realise our assets, if we could. Now, what is the present position of the colony} I think I am justified in making a comparison. Let us go back, say, eighteen years, and I think we may compare this colony to an individual, say a farmer. Well, this man is plodding along, jnst able to make a fair living and to put away a little, and he could go on doing that; but unfortunately for him, one of those adventurous clever fellows, such as are described under the well-known term, "a man too clever by half," and who in America, I think, would be called a " carpetbagger,"—a man of genius and theories —a man who has no stake in the country, and no Obncern for the welfare of the man he is advising, but only a wish to benefit himself — well, this clever fellow gets hold of this simple man and persuades him that he is a foolish man to go plodding along in the way he does. Ho tells him that he should raise a huge loan and set up in business, say as a brewer—for, as Dr Johnson says, in that there is remarkable potentiality of riches — and this simple man is beguiled by his adventurer. He borrows.and sots up as a brower, but some years after he finds he can neither brew good ale nor get a sale for it, and he is getting deepor and deeper into debt every year, he can barely pay interest on what he has borrowed, aud is on the very brink of rain. Now, undor such circumstances, if he were fortunate enough to meet a purchaser who really understood the business he has gone into, and who would pay him for his plant and take it all off his hands—well, if he did not aceept such an offer he ought to be placed in a lunatic asylum. That, I understand, is the position of the colony. Tho only thing I have any doubt about is that I am not quite as sure as other honorable members are, and as the Premier is, that we should meet with a purchaser for our railways at a prioe near what they have Coat. That is the question. Not being an expert or having much knowledge of such matters, I do not feel that I can speak dogmatically on that point, and all I say is that I think there is a reasonable probability. If proper measures had been taken two years ago we might have sold our railways at what they cost, and probably for something more. Mr Fisher.—Not for half their cost. Dr Hodgkinson.—Well, you pretend to know; but. I have met a great many men who are in a much better position to know, who assure me that thoy would sell for a great deal more than they. cost. I am sure the Premier himself is extremely sanguine on the point; only, unfortunately, ho is imbued with this modern spirit of socialism which is part of the Liberal creed which I feel myself at liberty to denounce. Some of these young politicians who have scarcely got the shell off their backs have the assurance to tell me that I am a Tory, when all my life long I have been considered an ultra-Radical. Well, the fact is this: I have some experience of the world, and I am not disposed to rush into all these sorts of things without consideration —such as nationalisation of the land and, I may arid, female sufferage; although I am sorry to see that there aro some menwho are approaching their second ohildhood who advocate that. But I am not one of them. As this is a question on which one feels at liberty to speak on almost any subject, I will now take the liberty of saying a a few words with regard to our railways. There is no knowing what we may come to. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I am afraid the country will not consent to soil its'railways until it is driven to it by necessity. We aro at present, apparently, in better times, but I am sure that the little gleam of sunshine that we have had last year, if you look into it, is only due to tho increase in the price of our produco; and I fear that will not last. I Bay that if we wore to sell our railways we should get rid of this property tax." If you look into the question, you will find that the interest on these railways, putting their cost at £15,000,000, and taking interest at 5 per cent., is £750,000 a year. That is a vory large proportion of the interest we have to pay in England. No one claims that these railways are paying more than 21 per cent., and I think the general opinion is that the net return from them is only 2 1 per cent., while I do not think, myself, that they pay more than 2 por cent., because the Government are not compelled, as are private companies, to set aside a certain reserve fund, and they go on spending money to keep the thing going. But, putting them in the most fay-jcrble light, as paying 2A per cent., that leaves a deficiency of £375,000 a year, and you may safely put it down that they are causing a yearly loss to the colony of £400,000, which is moro than tho amount of the property-tax. If we could sell our railways for more than they cost, and thereby relieve ourselves to a great extent of the interest we have to pay, wo should he doing very well. Of course, we should not be able to pay off at once all these loans which have Ei long to run ; but wo should bo saving every year. And that woul'J be only the smallest pirt of the bent fit, because it would havo the effect of bringing an immense amount of cipital into tbo country, and wc should get, through our connection with England, a great number of people interested in our prosperity, who would become colonising agents. That would give the colony a great impotus, and our railways would be managed far nioio in the interests of tho people than they ever will be while they remain tho property of the State, whether they are worked by the Government or Commissioners appointed by the Government. Now, in saying this, I may be told that I am setting my opinion against the world : but I say that I have the world with me, except that part of the world which is contained in what I ruuy call by comparison the petty colonies of Australia. In most all other parts of the world, and especially in the New World, in Canada and tho United States, the lailways have been made by companies through land-grants from the Governments, and those Governments have not incurred debt for construction of railways. Why should it not pny us to do that hero.' I have always maintained that if our railways had been made under some such olrm ns that thiY colony would not bo in the frightful suite of indebtedness which it is in now. Let. us take the example of the United States. They have got the grandest railway system in thi world there, and it has cost over a thousand million?to make it. These railways have been mad' by a system of land-giant?, and, instead o' the people who got the land using it to place serfs upon it, ns it h;is po often been said wo ill be tho case here, they becauio grenl colon using agents, and got tleir Ian?! settled by industrious people from Em ope, so that thecountry has advanced to a wonderful extent. Tho same is t'.e case in Canada. I admit there are abuses there in connection with tinrailways; but. 1 havp looked into the n.after. and I find that, though abuses exist, thoy will yet be met. by legislate n, and then is no desire on the part of the people o! America that the Government, should purchase tho railways. So far from Hut, you will fi id that it is fully n cognised thnt if the Government were to do so the abuses would be inoreased. The saiie is the case in Canada, and wo know that in England tho railways have all tern made by companies, and the value of ih.-un excer-ds considerably the whole national debt. Now, supposing the United States had done ns we have done, they had a great excuse, for, after the great civil war the country was very poor and almost, prostrate, and if there was an excuse for so no speculative politician to adopt a grand scheme of public works it, was then : but. so far from tho United States acting in such a mauuer, and adopting such a wild 8.-hemo, they s<-t themselves steadily to work, ihey tnx«d themselves heavily, and in twentyfive years they reduced their debt dy one-half. 7f they had done what we hevo done here, thoy would havo had to burden thcnisolves to •-.the"extent of two thousand millious, and they

would have had nothing but political railways losing money year by year enormously. We profess that we have contracted our debt for productive works ; but will any one say that the United States would be as well off as they are now if they had had the railways in their own hands, with a debt of two or three thousand millions ? Instead of that, they have a comparatively small debt of £230,000,000, and they have railways all over the country, serving the people in a better way than they are served in any other country where railways are established. I am afraid we shall I not be fortunate enough to find a purchaser, and tho country is not in the temper now to take the question up, for various reusons. One reason, I am sorry to say, is that our school of Liberalism, is far too much imbued with the French principle of communism and socialism. They havo deserted the true old English system of Liberalism, and have adopted the French. That is one great difficulty in the way of educating public J opinion in. this direction. Then, another reason is that many prudent men, who admit that it would be well to sell our railways if we could be perfectly sure that a good use would bo made of the money when we got it, and that it would be applied to paying off our national debt, dare not do it, because they fear that another Togel might appear on the scene, and force ns into a few more millions of loans. And what does that mean ? It means that the people have no confidence in this cr any other Government; and if you follow that out to its logical conclusion you will find that it means that we are not fit for responsible institutions at all. I havo sometimes thought that, and I have talked with settlers who are of the opinion that it might really be well if we wero to act on the same principle on which we have acted in regard to our railways, and appoint a Commission. We have placed our railways under three Commissioners, who are virtually the dictators thoy ought to bo. Tito mere fact of our doing that is a clear admission that the Government themselves cannot administer tho railways. What may be the ' result of that Ido not know. I voted for it because I believed it would be better; but I am afraid of the consequences, because, so long as the railways are owned by the Government, you cannot separate political elements from them; and theso Commissioners, however honest and hardworking cannot manage them as a private company would. I say that I have considered the question of whether it would not be a very good thing to extend this principle to ourselves, and that we should go to Europe and get a Commission of the very best men. England, no doubt, would fee the best place to go to; and if you could get a political and financial expert such as Mr Goschen it might be very safely queried whether he would not be cheap at £30,000 a year if he became dictator of all our affairs for, say, seven years. We might then say," Take away that bauble ;'* you, Sir, might disappear from the scene, the doors of this House might be locked, and at the end of seven years our affairs would be so far retrieved that possibly might again enduro another ten or twelve years of Responsible Government such as we have had. Ido not wish such a thing to be done, because I would much sooner see us retrieve our own affairs. I believe tho bost thing to have done would have been to have sold onr railways two or three years ago, and placed them in the hands of two or three syndicates'—not one with a mbnoply, but as they have done in England and America. Still, it is really a query whether it would not be a very good thing to place all our affairs in tho hands of such a man as I have spoken of. i