geese. Or, to borrow another illustration, here is this tariff question—a lion to be thrown to a den of Daniels. In the original illustration an almighty power closed the mouths of those who gathered round the victim; but there is no power to close the months of those who will gather round this question. But the Government hope that the tariff, like that other sacrifice, will escape from the den and remain over for another session, when they will possibly find other means of escaping from the difficulty once more. Then we have the.subject of " Capital and its Movements," —a subject on which I expected my honourable friend to be par ticularly explicit. I certainly looked forward with some expectation to his views on this sub ject, but I scarcely think he did justice to his knowledge of it. He did not, as most of his colleagues did, dogmatize on this subject out of Parliament. The random rhetoric of the recess was full of it. There was no subject on which Ministers were more profoundly igno rant, and none on which, consequently, they displayed more confidence and contradiction. Then we have the assertion that the Treasurer has " found no evidence of the rate of interest increasing." He is lucky m being m a position of not having had to realise that interest has risen considerably within the last few months. And he gives what he calls an " illustration." He says,— " A. large loan company that is said to be withdrawing from the colony declined to renew a 7-per-cent. mortgage,—one of considerable amount, —with the result that the mortgage was immediately taken up by a Sydney asso ciation at 6£ per cent. The lesson is that if we have got the security the capital will be forthcoming, even m spite of party cries." If the Treasurer was disposed to adduce a true illustration m support of his argu ment, he ought to have been m a position to give particulars, so as to euable others to test its applicability to the circumstances ; but he has refused on three occasions to give us that information. First of all he would not disclose the parties' names ; then he would not disclose the other details, without the parties' names; and then he would not give even the amount. But those who have had to do with capital, even m a small way, know very well that this " illustration " is one which exempli fies quite an ordinary occurrence. Here we have a large loan company said to be with drawing from the colony. Now, these large loan companies, we know, raise most of their capital upon debentures repayable generally at the end of five years. Here, then, is a large company which raised money five years ago upon debentures and lent it m the colony. Five years ago 7 per cent, was a low rate of interest on mortgages; but this year, whether from want of confidence m the Government of the day through their legislation, or because money had to be found to pay debenture-holders, the mortgage debt had to be called m, at a time when money had increased m value as compared with that ruling some months before. So we find an association m one of the neighbour ing colonies -willing to lend the " considerable amount "at 6£ per cent. Lucky association! Unhappy mortgagee! Twelve months ago the money could have been had for (3 per cent.: now it has gone up to 6-J. The " illustration " is a complete condemnation of the Colonial Treasurer and displays his ignorance of the most ordinary experience m business. There has assuredly been a widespread feeling of insecurity, and it has taken various forms. It is all very well for Ministers to quote this or that opinion. Utterances can be found right and left, but the drift tends but one way. City magnates have spoken,—some were concerned not to excite further discontent, while others spoke out m the hope of averting greater evil. Most convincing is practical experience, and those who have had any know that capital has been requiring further margin, and has shown a reluctance to lend at all for the time being. We know interest has gone up; and I ask, who has benefited ? I say the Government of the day has distinctly played into the hands of the local capitalists. They have benefited most from the threatening policy of the Govern ment. Some companies which had money raised on debentures m England have had to withdraw, or to arrange to withdraw; but the capitalists who were content to keep their money here, and those abroad who had agents to inspire that confidence which most of us m the colony feel m its future, —knowing its in destructible quality, and being assured that no mischief can permanently hamper its pro gress,—have had the advantage of a cautious market and have obtained their A to £ per cent, advance, and secured it for periods of from three to five years. Therefore I say it is the poor settler and the struggling tradesman who have been taxed by having to pay a higher rate of interest. I notice throughout, and other honourable members no doubt have also noticed, the distinction which is sought to be drawn throughout the Financial Statement between local and foreign capital, to the dis paragement of the latter; and probably no views could be loss supported by practical experience than those which are expressed m this con nection. If capital be withdrawn from the colony it necessarily follows that the competi tion for what is left will be greater and that it will be harder to borrow. Necessarily so. Like most other subjects of trade, money is governed

by the laws of supply and demand. Then, we have on this subject a quotation from the Economist, which runs thus :—• "It is also understood that iv the case cf recent legislation m New Zealand the inter pretation of the class-taxation clauses of the Land- and Income-tax Assessment Act will be less detrimental to imported capital than the debates upon that measure, and even its word ing, had led Anglo-New-Zealand capitalists to expect." What was the Premier thinking of when he put such a quotation m his Statement ? Why, it is the utmost condemnation of his own posi tion ! It speaks of the detrimental character of the debates upon the measure. Who made that the occasion for attacking capital and capitalists ? Who but my honourable friend the Minister who —-with some affectation — calls' himself the Minister of Labour! On that occasion, at the cost of syntax, he referred to inanimate objects as "social pests." But his meaning was never misunderstood; and per haps no declaration ever made m this House has done more harm to the colony than that, coupled as it was with the "warning" which was given m his speech. Those at Home, and others living at a distance from the colony, do not know how irascible the honourable gentleman is, and how nervous, and how, m the heat of debate, he is apt to give expression to ideas which will not bear the test of cool reflection. They took it for granted that, as it was a Minister of the Crown who was speaking, he did so guardedly and carefully, and after due thought on the Eubject. The detrimental character of such language is almost incalculable; and if the honourable gentleman were to devote all his time for the rest of his natural days m seeking to undo the harm he did last session he would still be a debtor to the country which has fostered him. In other aspects the extract is a curious quota tion for the Premier to make, for it contains an admission that the " wording " of the Act itself was detrimental to the interests of the colony m London ; yet he hesitates even now, when asked again and again, to put this matter right. We did not ask him for any details. We merely ask him whether he is going to put duplicate taxation on a large amount of debenture capital invested m the colony; and he hesitates to give us an answer. The Postmaster-General made some reference to the subject to-night, but I confess I was unable to understand what he meant. He made a statement that the Premier is going to make a declaration on the subject; but what that declaration is to be he leaves m doubt. Probably it will be to a large extent contingent on the returns still to come m. But, recurring to this extract from the Economist, it will be observed that it speaks of an improved understanding having been brought about. And how ? Doubtless, from the com munication of the Agent-General, to the effect that debenture capital would not be taxed twice. But again the Premier has thrown doubt on the matter by hesitating to confirm the good understanding brought about by the Agent-General ; —indeed, he repudiates it by saying the Agent-General had no authority for what he stated. There is scarcely any doubt whatever that the prevarication will have its effect m London. Probably we shall be told that some member of this House has cabled it to London ; but there will be no more foundation for that assertion than there was for the state ment he hazarded that honourable members had cabled to London after last session about the taxation proposals. He complains of the comments of the Times on the subject of the proposed taxation; but the very article m the Times shows clearly that the writer was not inspired by any information from any one m the New Zealand Parliament. The article m tho Times was no doubt erroneous m some respects as to the operation of the proposed land-tax, overestimating amounts m some cases, and underestimating them m others ; but it ended up by saying that the Bill was so mutilated by the Legislative Council that the Government dropped it: leaving its readers to understand that the Bill did not pass, and consequently putting the position much more favourably for the colouy than the Agent-General did when he explained that the Bill did pass. No member of this House could have made such a mistake as to say that the Bill was dropped. We all knew that it was not dropped, — that it went through the Legisla tive Council without a letter being touched. Ileferenee is made m the Statement to the Bureau of Industries; and, for myself, I think it is capable of doing a great deal of good m bringing the supply of labour and the demand for it together. But it is quite a different thing to give any measure of accord to this new system of so-called " Co-operation m Public Works," which the Premier says is now "become a per manent institution m New Zealand." That is a very serious declaration to make. Co-opera tive work, as the term is generally understood, means work m which men of different capacities have combined to effect as a whole what they could not individually do with profit. But here we find a number of men out of employment, who have no capacity beyond the use of such im plements as the pick or shovel, who are thrown together and led to believe beyond any doubt that they will bo paid enough to keep them selves and their families. The process is a very simple one : a Government official fixes a price,

and, as plainly as if he were directed m words to do so, he fixes a price that will allow these men enough to enable them to live and clothe them selves, and to transmit something to their fami lies, if they have any—and they nearly all say they have families, the larger the better. The great objection to this is that the Government proposes to interfere artificially between labour and capital. These terms have been much abused. The forces implied exist m every com munity. But m this colony the distinction is very faint; it can hardly be said to exist. Where they meet they commingle—the labourer of to-day may be the capitalist of to-morrow. The great capitalists m this country are mostly men who have risen from the lower walks m life; and to say that there is any antagonism between capital and labour m New Zealand is to state what may be considered a fallacy, if not worse. But the system of Government co-operation m public works is claimed to have been established. We may hope it is not, for it is a system which puts a premium on labourers instead of seeking to in crease employers. With such an invitation as the Premier holds out m the Financial State ment, we shall have the unemployed from all the neighbouring colonies flocking to our shores; every one is promised work, sufficient to live upon, m return, for what he may, or may not, do under the name of work. We are told, with reference to this system of public works, which is henceforth to be but another name for co operative relief, that " to sit down content with such partial results would surely be considered the quintessence of folly." Surely the Premier has written his own condemnation, when he asks ths colony to go on with a system of public works upon a subsidy of £200,000 from the Consolidated Fund, which required appro priations last year, not including expenditure out of the North Island Main Trunk Railway Loan, of more than £500,000. This part of the Statement requires fuller explanation. Re ferring further to this so-called system of co operation, we find the whole Financial State ment m effect dedicating the colony to the Unemployed. We have such remarks as these: " The money we shall be spending this year will be largely devoted to provide employment for those who might otherwise be idle, thus keeping up the standard of wages." Again: " Work is to be found for all." Further on: " The Government has given m all these mat ters the first consideration to the problem of finding full employment for the people." To these ends the whole policy of the colony is to be made subservient. For such purposes £200,000 is this year to be raised by taxation ; next year half the subsidies to local bodies is to go ; m the next but one the remainder of the subsidies will be taken to feed the unemployed —for to call them "workmen" would be a mis nomer. Burdens are to be heaped upon the industrious to feed the idle. And then the " Conclusion," as it is called, of the Financial Statement, is full of " wise saws " and what we may call " modern instances." We are favoured again with a quotation from a news paper. The author of the Statement is evi dently partial to the art of writing leading articles; and m this quotation we have a picture of the colony " wasting millions," — somewhat overdrawn; " a soil m the grasp of the speculator " —which reminds us that the subject is m the hands of a penny-a-liner ; — " people huddled into towns, dependent upon public works for subsistence " —this must be apropos of the future; —" a land of banks, mort gage companies, and finance companies " —this recalls the events of last session when deputa tions waited on the Premier with reference to concessions which were readily made at the instance of banks and loan and mortgage com panies ; —"a community whose very life is jobbed away like hemp " — a conclusion sug gestive of the hangman. These word-pictures are from a newspaper article published not more than h've years ago. Well, Sir, they are very serious charges to make against the Adminis tration of that day. I should not have made them unless I had been assured by some one entitled to speak with special knowledge of the circumstances. But the Premier tells us that the indictment is " not absolutely unfounded; " and he certainly ought to know, because five years ago the Ministry m office was one of which he was a member. Many would not have believed it if the admission had not come from the honourable gentleman himself, that his former Ministry was one that wasted mil lions, —that allowed the soil to remain m the grasp of the speculator,—that huddled people into towns, — that was given over to banks and mortgage and finance companies, — that jobbed away the very life of the people. This, Sir, is a picture that may have to be reframed shortly. Then we have the finale. The People —with a big P—are to be at length "restored to their heritage, free from the hand of the spoiler." Who is the spoiler m this context? Evidently, the man who is working on the land, and who has either acquired a right to call it his own or who is m the hope of being m that position. How is it to be restored ? Evidently the Minister of Lands has discovered some where about Shag Valley the broken tables of the law and patched them together m the new and revised edition of the Small-farm Asso ciation Regulations. That is how the Peoplo are to be restored to their Heritage. They were never there before, but the Spoiler is to be

evicted. This is as clear an appeal for land nationalisation as can be put forward. In case there be any doubt on the point, it is only necessary to refer to what the Premier said m Auckland. He said, " the Government are at present as far as possible nationalising the land by means of the special-settlement system." The special-settlement system is one which, il legally I believe, at; present forbids the hope of acquiring a freehold,—a system of restricted areas: no man can have more than—or, rather, the average holding is not to exceed — 200 acres. We are told that 1,741 members of small-farm associations applied last year for 342,000 acres, or about 196 acres each "of land, which is for the most part second-class land; but even such areas sound extravagant when we remember that the Premier expected the old soldiers to live on twenty or thirty acres of bush land. More recently, at Palmerston North, he referred to the case of a man owning a farm of 180,000 acres, which, he said, would be splendid if cut up, and if four thousand or even eight thousand families wero settled on it, —which would give an average of about 22J acres to each family! What I wish the House and the country to understand m con nection with this subject is that we are asked to revolutionise the land-tenure of the colony. I am not going to enter into details of the Land Bill at present—a more fitting opportunity will soon occur, —but I wish to refer to the general policy of that measure m connection with the Financial Statement and the declarations of the Premier. I say that the freehold is m danger. The Government are sufficiently aware that it will not do to como out boldly at present, but there can be no doubt whatever that the policy of the Government is such that the freehold is threatened. .It is not right that this should.be so, and the House will, I hope, be prepared to stand by the freehold. In the grey homespun of the settler's life we must pre serve the golden thread of ownership. That is the policy which is best calculated to advance the State as well as the individual. • What are the men m the bush-clearings saying—what are the men m the workshops saying—those who have ambitions, however homely, to fulfil —who have families to provide for ? In the city or the solitude they are saying: We will not have this so-called perpetual lease of the Ministry, which precludes the hope of freehold, —we will not become State tenants, subject to. the supervision of Rangers, and Commissioners, and Ministers, —we will not have, either, this " unemployed " difficulty elevated into the im portance of a policy,—we will not have these pets of the Premier's, who are not likely do any good, coming to sit under some one else's vine and fig-tree,—we will not have the sub merged tenth of this colony and of the ad joining colonies and even of England invited to treat as a " heritage " that which they have clone nothing to deserve ; —no, we will not have these changes ; —we want the settlers to deter mine what the tenure shall be, —we want to give them their choice, —but we believe that even with a handicap of 1 per cent, we should see them almost universally elect to have the right of freehold. The Government is trying to force a revolution. How, then, has this trea son grown so bold? At the last general elec tion it would have been considered heresy to suppose that the honourable gentleman at the head of the Ministry would come out with such declarations as these : Work for all; the Con solidated Fund charged with public works — another name for co-operative contracts; men to be paid whether they earn wages or not. I can only suppose that the Ministry have been looking for a sign. Like the Israelites of old, they got no sign; but they heard a cry from the crowd, and have repeated it, and sought to elevate it into a policy. They are labouring under a mistake: they mistook a disturbance for a phenomenon. The thing is dying out already. The democracy is not a set of loafers, nor is it largely capable of being made such. The democracy is for the most part made up of men with ambitions which are relatively just as precious as the ambitions of any m the colony, and they are waking up to realise that they are being sacrificed for a mere floating hus tings crowd. They are being taxed heavily on the necessaries of life to provide for those who care nothing how taxes are raised, as they are to be provided for, whatever happens. What does this policy mean ? It means, as surely as one logical proposition follows another, that the Government are going to abolish all other forms of property as well as land; and the more honest of their associates have no hesitation m de claring it. I say they want to abolish all forms of property, and to bring the means of produc tion, as well as the agents of production, under the direct control of the Government. Happy it would be if those m power were able to lead the growing desires of the masses into right paths, and not be carried away by every pas sion. The danger before us is very real, to my mind. To avert it we must face it. In view of the dangers before us m this Statement, party distinctions and names of former im port cease to convey any meaning: it is now a choice between the party of order and the party of disorder; between those who are m favour of a just, a careful, and a progressive administration, as against those who are pre pared to plunge into experimental socialism.

G. Didsbuby, Government Printer, Wellington,

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