PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 37, 12 September 1901, Page 20

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

(From our special correspondent.)

The House resumed business on Tuesday forenoon when the debate on the Financial Statement was continued by the Hon. Mr. McGowan. Regarding the notes of warning which had been raised by certain members he said that if the Colony required roads and bridges these could not be constructed out of the revenue. He explained that certain apparent increases in the expenditure in his departments were the result of amalgamation. The Hon. C. H. Mills said that out of the £10,760,895, which was the gross increase of the public debt during the past ten years, £7,794,736 were spent on direct interest returning objects. The other speakers were Messrs J. W. Thomson. E. G. Allen, Willis, Pirani, Massey, Arnold, Flatman, and Haselden.

The Hon. J. 6. Ward resumed the debate on the Financial Statement on Wednesday afternoon. He pointed ont that the increase in salaries was due in a great measure to the creation of new departments, all of which had the sanction of the members who were now complaining. The increase of £11,220,000 in the public debt was met by an increase of £1,650,000 in the consolidated revenue during the same period. The Governmpnt had been charged with having increased the salaries of the highly-paid officers, but he pointed out that outside of the two classified services the increases to heads of departments amounted to only £250. Of the 880 increases granted, 802 were made to officers drawing under £300 per annum, and he contended unless they wanted to knock the spirit out of their civil servants they must give these increases to men in the lower grades. The salaries paid to the principal officers in the New Zealand Railway Department did not compare at all favorably with the salaries paid in the other colonies, and in some cases our officers had refused higher salaries from other colonies Men drawing £100 in the Railway Department here would get £550 for the came class of work elsewhere. As to the Colony being in difficulties, why, it was absolutely contrary to faot. The customs revenue waa now only £11,000 behind what it was this time last year. The postal revenue, despite heavy concessions, was only £8336 to the bad, and the railway revenue was already £65,802 in excess of the revenue for the correspondihg five months of last year. Did that look like going to the bad 1 Of th« loans borrowed during the last 10 years, over eight millions were directly interestbearing.

Mr. J. Hutoheion adversely criticised the statement, and oondemned the exnravaganoe of the administration, whd«t the land policy of the Government was not benefiting settlers. Messrs. Atkinson and Lethbridge followed in a somewhat similar strain, and Messrs. Wilford, Barclay, and MoLaohlan expressed approval of the policy of the Government,

. The debate was continued on Thursday and Friday, but there waa little of interest in the speeches.