He

tampered with by the Colonial Treasurer to make an incorrect return in order to back up the Treasurer's statement? Certainly not; and no member of this House has a right to insinuate anything of the sort. He made a great deal of the assertion made by the Treasurer that the Government had not had an opportunity of answering the different statements made in the course of the financial debate. The Treasurer, I believe, spoke for himself on that occasion, and not with regard to other members of the Ministry; and, as a matter of fact, he has not had an opportunity of replying, and will not have an opportunity of replying until he replies on the whole debate. has no right to speak until every honourable member has exercised his right to speak, if he chooses to do so; and he cannot reply to one or two speeches only. He must wait until every honourable member has had an opportunity of speaking, because when he replies the debate comes to a close. The Premier is the responsible head of the Government; he is responsible for the finances of the country, he is responsible for the Financial Statement and for the figures and details in that Statement. As a matter of fact, he has not had an opportunity of replying to the erroneous statements made by several honourable members on the other side of the House, and therefore the assertion made that the member of the Government in charge of the finances of the country has not yet had an opportunity of answering those erroneous statements is absolutely correct. The honourable member for Wellington City laughs, but he knows perfectly well that what I say is true. Mr. FISHER.-What about the other four? Mr. GUINNESS.-Does the honourable gentleman say, then, that each of the four is Colonial Treasurer, and conversant with the accounts of the Financial Statement?

Mr. FISHER.-I do not think they know very much about it.

Mr. GUINNESS.-Then, why do you want persons who you say do not know anything about it to answer? There is one permanent head to answer, and he has not yet had an opportunity. The honourable gentleman has no right to make a speech to-day on the question of privilege and to refer to another debate. The honourable member for Wellington City has therefore committed a breach of the Standing Orders. The question before the House is one which the majority of the members cannot agree with. As I said before there is nothing to justify them in accepting the mere ipse dixit of the honourable member for Ellesmere that these accounts are incorrect. I fail to see that there is any use in discussing this motion. Let us go to a vote and reject it, unless the honourable member has the grace to withdraw the motion.

Mr. G. HUTCHISON.-The honourable member who has just sat down generally concludes his remarks by saying that the House should immediately proceed to vote on the question he has presumably disposed of. But, so far from settling the question, the honourable gentleman has confounded the issue so as

to necessarily prolong this debate. It is not a question of corrrectness between the officers of the Treasury and the honourable member for Ellesmere, as the honourable member who has last spoken would suggest. The question of correctness is one between the Secretary of the Treasury and the Colonial Treasurer; and, that the matter may be, I hope, simplified, so that the House may proceed with the business on the Paper, I would ask honourable members, if so inclined, to compare the identical table of last year corresponding with Table 3 following the Financial Statement this year, and they will see immediately where the error comes in. Last year the gross indebtedness was £38,832,350; this year it is £38,713,068, showing a decrease of £117,282. But we have to proceed to the next column in cach Statement to find what the sinking funds accrued were. Last year they were estimated at £1,473,193; this year they are said to be £1,035,449, a reduction of £437,744: that is to say, the sinking funds accrued have been reduced during the year by that sum; in other words, a large portion of the sinking funds has been collared for the purpose of public works during last financial year, and, in consequence, the net indebtedness, which is that we are chiefly concerned with, has been increased. Here are the figures: Last year it was £37,359,157; this year it is £37,677,619— an increase of £318,462. These are the sums stated in the documents issued last year and this with the Treasurer's annual Statements; but more exact calculations have shown the increase of the net indebtedness really to have amounted to £334,311 on the 31st March last. It is perhaps as well, when on this question of the debt, to refer to another increase which has by this time taken effect in consequence of the conversion arranged for six or seven years ago, by which the public debt has been increased, in round numbers, by another £300,000. So that, at the moment we are now speaking, the public debt of the colony, under the administration of the Colonial Treasurer, has been increased by over £600,000.

Mr. TAYLOR.-Before the honourable member for Ellesmere replies, I wish to say a word or two on this question. Sir, the last speaker and I give him credit for it-is endeavouring to bamboozle the people of this colony by "1,002," and using terms of that kind. If he wishes to make his remarks intelligible to the people of this colony, let him interpret what he means by "1,002," "1,002," and that kind of thing. What I was about to say is this: I exceedingly regret the honourable member for Ellesmere did not accept the statement made by the Premier, and take his word for what he did say, and withdraw the motion which he is going to reply to. I am quite satisfied of this: When my honourable friend was Premier of the colony, if any one on the Opposition benches got up and charged him with placing papers before the Parliament of the country which were not just, not fair, and not correct, what would he have said?

An Hon. MEMBER.-It would not matter.

Mr. TAYLOR.-That depends upon the circumstances of the case. I do trust my honourable friend will withdraw this motion. I must say, before I sit down, that I entirely agree with the Premier when he first spoke on this question; there is evidently a conspiracy on that side of the House to get up games of this kind in order to keep Bills back. I have a most important Bill on the Paper to-day-the Coroners' Inquests Bill-a Bill which will pay the people for the services they have rendered to the State. It is of far more importance than this "1,002" kind of thing. I must protest over and over again against the unfair manner in which the Opposition are dealing with me, seeing what great assistance I occasionally give them.

Sir J. HALL.—I will be as brief as possible in my reply. I will have more consideration for the business on the Order Paper than some of those who have spoken on this question. One or two remarks made by the honourable member for the Grey I wish to refer to. He said that I asked the House to pass this motion on my own ipse dixit, against the certified return of the Secretary to the Treasury. The whole of the facts are contained in three lines of two Financial Statements. There is a line in last year's Financial Statement, and there is a line in this year's Financial Statement, both giving the net debt, and the balance shows a difference of £117,000. Surely the honourable member must have a very poor opinion of the intelligence of members of this House if they cannot come to a conclusion from these figures whether this return is correct or not. One other point: The last speaker stated that the Government had had no chance of replying to the arguments used in this debate because the Treasurer could only speak at the end of the debate. The honourable gentleman is paying a very poor compliment to the other members of the Ministry. It is as much as to say that the Treasurer is the only man who understands anything about finance, and who is at all capable of replying to the arguments about the Statement. The Minister for Public Works stated that last session I had laid down the rule that when papers signed by the heads of departments were presented to the House, the House must take those returns as from the heads of the departments. The honourable gentleman is in error. What I did complain of was that the Minister for Public Works, in presenting a return from a body not under the control of the Government-the Railway Commissioners-had extracted a paper which had been placed in the return by that body. That was what was complained of last session. Then, the Minister said that I had cast a reflection on the Secretary to the Treasury. The Secretary to the Treasury is a gentleman whom I have known very much longer than the Minister for Public Works. He is a gentleman for whom I have a very high respect, both in regard to his qualifications and to his character. That is surely not to prevent me, if I think he has made a mistake which may have a misleading effect on the public mind, from calling the attention of the

House to the fact, and asking that the mistake may be corrected. The Prime Minister says I have been trying to get up a debate-that I have been working at this since last night. An Hon. MEMBER.-Since last week.

Sir J. HALL.-Yes, first he said "last week; and then, when he found the return was only presented last night, he tried to make out that I had been sitting up all night to get this up. Why, the whole thing is contained in three lines

in the two Financial Statements. I saw the return was wrong the moment I read it. It did not take me five minutes to put down the figures which prove that my statement is correct. Whether I am attempting to stop the business let the House judge. I ask gentlemen on the opposite benches whether I did not studiously confine myself to the few remarks which were necessary to prove the correctness of the resolution I am now moving. I did not introduce any extraneous matter, and I made my remarks as brief as possible. The question is brought forward now for this reason: It is a question of privilege, and you have ruled, Sir, that if such a question is not brought forward at the earliest possible opportunity it cannot be brought forward except upon notice being given; therefore I was bound to bring it forward at the present time. It is an urgent matter, because a return of this character, if it goes forth to the public in an incorrect form, will very greatly mislead the public mind. It will lead them to believe that the Colonial Treasurer is the first Treasurer for the last two-and-twenty years who has succeeded in reducing the public debt, whereas, as a matter of fact, there has during the year been an increase in the public debt of £334,000. It is an urgent matter, and I shall take a division upon it. The House divided.

EMPOWERING BILL.

On the question, That this Bill be read a third time,

Mr. FISHER suggested that the honourable member in charge of the Bill should postpone the third reading for a period of, say, one week. It was true no charge could be made against the municipal authorities to the effect that they had not sufficiently notified the provisions of the Bill, for all the forms required in regard to private and local Bills had been complied with by the municipal authorities. At the same time, he thought it would have been better if the subject had been better ventilated among the people of the city in what might be termed a more popular way: he meant, by calling a public meeting for the discussion of such an important Bill. The Bill authorised the raising of £200,000 for the carrying-out of a drainage scheme, and for providing public baths, recreation-grounds, et cetera. On a former occasion he drew attention to the fact that the local bodies throughout the colony owed not less than six and a half millions of money, of which amount Wellington owed at the present moment £650,000 in round numbers; and now it was proposed to add £230,000 to that sum, and a very little more would place on a city containing a population, roughly speaking, of thirty-three thousand an indebtedness of a million sterling. He was free to confess that his views on this point were very considerably mitigated through knowing, as the citizens of Wellington knew, that the city had during the past summer been visited so much by typhoid fever. A gentleman had written to himself and his two colleagues a letter to this effect:

'Wellington, 18th July, 1892. "MY DEAR SIR,-I take the liberty, as a ratepayer and citizen of Wellington, to write to you respecting the Sanitation Bill, which is, as I understand, in your charge. The Bill is, I believe, very cleverly drawn to include other things besides sanitation pure and simple. With these I have nothing to do. But, as regards sanitation, I venture to suggest to you that a great wrong will be done to your constituents unless you arrange for a public meeting of them to consider the two very important principles embodied in the Bill: First, that an absolute majority of the ratepayers shall not be in future necessary at a poll; second, that the City Council is the body who are to carry out the proposed drainage scheme. As a ratepayer and a citizen I am compelled to protest against your carrying such a Bill through Parliament without first making sure that it is acceptable to your constituents. You cannot help being aware that there is a large section of the people who do not agree with either of the two principles just mentioned; and it does not seem just to them that they should be deprived of an opportunity of fairly discussing these points. If, in public meeting assembled, the citizens authorise you to proceed with the Bill nobody could further complain. Failing that, I venture to think there will be very serious reason for complaint. I may mention to

ago the present Mayor assured me that a public meeting would be called to discuss the Bill. There is yet time to redeem that promise. Of course, you will not consider this note as private, and I am sending a copy of it to your colleagues.-Faithfully yours, "W. M. MASKELL."

He would say that the city authorities had given every necessary notification-had given the proposed scheme all the publicity that could be expected from them-and he merely called attention to these two facts for the purpose of saying that he did not agree with the objections urged by the gentleman who had written the letter; because all necessary notice had been published in the Wellington papers for so long; and, therefore, if any complaint was made, that complaint was due to the apathy of the citizens themselves. They should have called, if they so desired, a public meeting; and, they themselves having taken no steps in that direction, the ground was cut from beneath them. But he would suggest to the honourable gentleman that, as the motion for third reading was purely formal, in order to meet the wishes of any one who might object to the Bill, he should postpone the third reading for, say, a week.

Bill read a third time.

WAIRARAPA HOSPITAL DISTRICT BILL.

INTERRUPTED DEBATE.

Mr. HOGG desired merely to explain a few simple facts, and to obtain a division upon the Bill. He was perfectly willing that the House should come to a division as speedily as possible. He would simply state a few figures that could not be disputed. It was said by the mover of the amendment, and repeated by the honourable member for the Hutt, who claimed to know everything about it, that one great reason why the Bill should not be passed was that the Wellington Hospital received a considerable number of patients from the Wairarapa. This was not a hospital question at all. The Wairarapa was entirely separate from Wellington with reference to hospital matters. In the Wairarapa there was a united hospital district, and they had two well-equipped and efficient hospitals. With regard to the statement as to hospital patients travelling from Masterton and the Wairarapa down to Wellington, he thought it applied equally against the people of Wellington. If the report of the Inspector of Hospitals was examined it would be found that as many patients went from Wellington to Masterton for treatment as patients from Masterton travelled to Wellington. reference to the character of the hospitals, he might mention that the hospitals at Masterton and Greytown were pronounced by the Inspector to be two of the best-managed hospitals in the colony. He thought that disposed entirely of the chief arguments which had been used by gentlemen who claimed to know everything about the subject. Now, what was the reason that this severance had been demanded by the local authorities? Simply this:

In

that every year since the Charitable Institu- I tions Act was passed, in 1885, a very large amount of money indeed had been drained from a district which supported its own poor, down to Wellington. It had been asserted that the poor in the country districts gravitated to the cities. It was no doubt the case that the poor of surrounding districts gravitated to the large centres, but there were large centres in the Wairarapa. There was a large centre at Masterton; and there were considerable centres in other parts of the district-namely, Carterton, Greytown, Pahiatua, and Woodville-and he asked whether it was reasonable to assume that the poor of that country should gravitate to Wellington when they were more likely to gravitate to centres nearer at hand. Was it reasonable that people living a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles from Wellington should be called upon to contribute to the poor of that city? In 1890-91 he found that the Wairarapa North County, subsidy included, contributed £1,051 to the United Charitable Aid Board, and received in return £350. The Wairarapa South County contributed £1,085, receiving in return £80. The Borough of Masterton contributed £249, and received nothing. Then, the amount levied in excess of the moneys that were allocated by the Board for Wairarapa North County was £701; for South County, £1,005; for Masterton Borough, £249; for Greytown, £32: or £1,988 15s. 4d. for that year. About £2,000, in round numbers, was taken from the Wairarapa to help the poor of another locality separated from it by nearly a hundred miles. Coming to a later date, the demands made upon the contributory local authorities in the Wairarapa Hospital District for the year 1892-93-he meant the present year -were as follow: Wairarapa North, £631; South County, £651 9s. 4d.; County of Pahiatua, £101 6s. 3d.; Borough of Masterton, £149 2s. 9d.; Carterton, £38 13s. 7d.; Greytown, £43 12s. 3d. The total amount was £1,615 7s. 6d. ; making, with the Government subsidy, £3,230 15s. obtained from this remote country district. And how much of this money was returned to the district which contributed? Here were the figures: North Wairarapa Benevolent Society, £500; Pahiatua, £100; Wairarapa South County, £50: or a total of £650-leaving a sum of £2,580 15s. drained from the Wairarapa District for the support of the poor of Wellington. The total contributions from the ratepayers of the Wairarapa District amounted, under the present system, to £1,695 7s. 6d. for the present year. The amount which was required by the local institutions for the poor of their own district was £325, leaving a balance against Wellington of £1,209 7s. 6d. The Wairarapa and Pahiatua Counties, with the boroughs therein, would during the current year be compelled to contribute to the United Charitable Aid Board, to maintain the poor in Wellington, nearly £1,300 more than was required for local distribution, and the Wellington institutions would be credited to the extent, including subsidies, of £2,580. Now, to show that this was no exceptional claim on the part of Wairarapa, he

would point out that the original Act of 1885 constituted twenty-eight districts, of which twelve were separate districts, similar to the district he now wished to see created. Among these separate districts they would find the Bay of Plenty, Cook, Wairau, Picton, South Canterbury, Waitaki, Westland, and Taranaki all separate districts. It was acknowledged, he thought, by all reasonable persons, whether ratepayers of Wellington or Wairarapa, that the Wairarapa District had been improperly united, because it should have been from the first a separate hospital district; and so well did Parliament recognise this fact that it was only by a very narrow division-he believed, on one occasion, by one vote-that the districts were kept united. Previous to the passing of the Act of 1885 the Wairarapa was in the habit of providing for its own poor, chiefly through voluntary contributions; but through the creation of this United Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, they had the fact presented to them that these voluntary contributions had been entirely dried up, and the whole weight fell upon the ratepayers. Then, he should mention the fact that the Wairarapa supported its own hospitals, and these were considered by the Inspector to be admirable institutions of the kind. They had also the Wairarapa Benevolent Society supporting its poor. It had been stated that the poor of the country gravitated into the towns; but he thought he could state for his own district that, on the contrary, the poor of Wellington gravitated into the country, and were chiefly provided for by the settlers of the country. That was a most notorious fact. They had every week large batches forwarded by the Labour Bureau into the centre of the district-as many as thirty, forty, and fifty in a week. He thought that entirely refuted the statement that the poor of the remote country districts gravitated into the city. They did nothing of the kind. Then, they knew very well that people from the city went up to the country with empty pockets. In the country they made plenty of money. Where did they go to spend it? Back to their haunts in the city. That was the way in which the city provided for the country poor! The boot was entirely on the other leg. But there was this difference: that the poor who gravitated from the city into the country were provided for chiefly by the large farmers and station-owners-from night to night and from day to day provided with rations and accommodation while they were travelling and looking for work, and there was no demand made by these people upon the Charitable Aid Board

-on the charitable institutions of the district. This money did not come out of the pockets of the general taxpayer. But, on the other hand, the poor of the city were provided for by local institutions, and not by the private charity of the hotelkeepers, merchants, residents, and ratepayers of the city. They were provided for by the Wellington Benevolent Society. That was the reason why a very heavy demand was made for charitable aid in the city, and not made for the assistance and maintenance from