be connected with the existing line. When he saw the waste that had taken place in the department, Mr. Saunders said, he felt thankful to Mr. Seddon for bringing about real and substantial economies.
There were crowded galleries in the House when the Financial Statement was delivered by Mr. Ballance. He was nervous at first, and showed a slight hesitancy; but when a hearty round of cheers was hurled at him from his party, he smiled back at his friends, and read his Statement with the air of a man who has achieved success, but whose elation is tempered with the responsibilities of his position.
He announced that there was a surplus of £143,000 on the operations of the year, “a result which must be very gratifying,” he said with a pause, filled in with more cheers, which were renewed when he said that at the end of the next year he anticipated that the surplus would be £260,000. What should be done with it? He glanced towards the new Postmaster-General, and said that the Government believed that the time had come when the penny-post should be established in New Zealand. Thirty thousand pounds could be spent in opening up land for settlements, and a large part of the surplus would be spent in other ways, leaving a good margin, however, in case of emergencies. Finally, he announced that the old property tax had seen its last days, and that the Government would introduce at once a graduated land tax and an income tax; and, in respect to the unemployed troubles, “we are naturally led to the practical consideration of the establishment of labour bureaux in the different centres of population, under the charge of a Minister of the Crown.”
A report had been put into circulation that the Opposition would lay in wait for the Financial Statement and then set upon the new Ministers, demolishing them with figures, tables, and learned dissertations on economical questions. There was still a belief, which was being raised to the rank of a legend, that all the learning, all the knowledge, and all the culture of the House was to be found on the Conservative side; and large numbers of people in Wellington who been led to believe that the working man’s Socialistic Ministry with revolutionary notions
