The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Saturday, May 18, 1839. WORKING THE ORACLE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 300, 18 May 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Saturday, May 18, 1839. WORKING THE ORACLE.

Bo just and fear not; Lot all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s. Thy God's, and truth’s.

It is wonderful to note the ingenious means which skilful politicians—that is “skilful" in the sense in which it is applied to politicians—devise to maintain office and power when once they succeed to it. In delaying the meeting of Parliament as long as possible Sir Harry Atkinson is playing his point in a way that enables us to admire his cleverness as a “ politician,” though it. may not be a creditable means of showing his cleverness. But they all without exception try their hands at it when they have an opportunity, so that there is not much use attempting to discriminate between the complexions of the kettle and the pot. The Wellington Post says When Parliament meets, Ministers will be called upon to account for the delay in its meeting. They have practically put off the date until the very lastest possible moment. The financia’l year expired on the 31st March, and since that date the expenditure has been carried on without direct appropriation, under a clause in the Public Revenues Act which enables it to be continued on a scale of the previous year for a period of three months. This period of grace will expire on the 30th June, and as Parliament is not to meet until six days before that date, it will be seen that they have run matters very close indeed. Within that six days they must get an Interim Appropriation Act passed, or the Treasury will have to shut up, The House has no real control over the expenditure provided for by these Interim Appropriation Acts, and as it will probably be a couple of months at least after the meeting of 1 Parliament before any substantial progress is made with the Estimates, it j must be evident that upwards of a third 1 —in fact, not by any means improbably 1 fully half—the year’s expenditure will ' have actually taken place without the I approval or revision of the represents, t

tives of the people. This is not a novel, but it is a decidedly objectionable, state of things. Attention has been called to its unsatisfactory character by the Auditor-General, in Parliament, and through the Press, and Colonial Treasurer after Treasurer has admitted the evil and promised to rectify it. All, however, seem to like to spend money without appropriation as long as they can, to put off the meeting of Parliament to the latest possible moment, and then to delay the delivery of the Financial Statement and estimates until such a period as renders it necessary to rush the latter through almost in globo, without any proper consideration. This is the old dodge, and evidently it is being tried again this year. Ten years ago Sir Harry Atkinson, in a virtuous moment, induced Parliament to change

the date of the financial year, by making it close on the 31st March instead of the 30th June, in order, as he said, to bring the expenditure of the colonial funds more immediately under the control of Parliament. The change, he contended, would give the Treasury plenty of time to get the Financial Statement, Public Accounts, and Estimates ready by a date which would enable them to be discussed in Parliament at a very early period of the year. He distinctly gave the House to understand that the effect of the change was to give it more effectual control, and that if it was assented to, Parliament would he called together earlier than was then usual. The effect has proved exactly the reverse of what Sir Harry Atkinson led the public to believe it would be. For one or two years, pretence was certainly made of having an early session, but generally a much longer period of uncontrolled expenditure takes place than was the custom when the financial year ended in June, and Parliament met in July. From early in May, the date of meeting of Parliament has gradually receded until now the end of June, or close on three months after the beginning of the new financial year, has been reached under the administratian of the present Government, which has also, it is well to bear in mind, abolished the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives. In fact the policy of the Government appears to be to keep the House of Representatives as ignorant as can be of the true condition of the public accounts, and to secure to itself the manipulation of the largest possible amount of public money without the control, knowledge, or interference of Parliament. We trust that in the coming session a vigorous protest will be entered against this policy, and an attempt made to apply a remedy, so that the practical control of the public finances shall rest with Parliament, not with Ministers.