Local Government. The local government policy, was to crown the edifice which Government, were building up. J5e * referred to the; failure,/ of , the Government- in - respeofr '' of > the Local Bodies' .Finance and \ Powers ."Bjll, ? jpoiht^ ing' out that ;,the t ,,\ Act" granted subsidies for six months,i instead of for 25 ye*ra, as ; proposed, and contained

only aeked'for a million ftnd a-half, and said tliat .withfcthfatii heA^ctßl^ii.oayr^nVthe: works with vigour, , ,But,the^igour w'fta hot sKown, and to him it was evident that the- Government were > not fiincere in their der claration.. The Government, werejiot^hbrt^ of money. They had £1,500,000 at their disposal at ' the beginning" oi< the l year,* whioh he (Major Atkinson) had, left, mnd they had more money in hand at the end, of the session than they had spent by £150,000, and then the one million loan and the million and a-half loan to draw «Ppn, Bp aat there could haye 4 been no 'difficulty^ This year the Government ' askdH^that' £1,600,000 should be granted to ttiem^The* Houseactually granted £2, 150,000, butinthe* Public Works Statement the Minister for Publics WorksBaid that they only proposed to expendduringtheyear£i,2oo,oQo,orin round numbers, a million and a quarter. It was said that the Opposition, by reduoing the Estimates, had hampered the Government and created depression, but the Govern ment had only applied for a million and a quarter, and a large portion of that was for defences, so that while last year the Govern ment spent £1,336,000 upon public works, thin year they only proposed to' spend a million and a quarter, of which a large sum, certainly £150,000, was to be spent in defence works. It may be recol lected that this statement was mad* in a document considered in Cabinet, and long before the Opposition had decided anything about reducing the Estimates. Thus the Government themselves bad decided upon limiting their expenditure to a million and a quarter. How was it possible for the Go vernment to say that they were anxious for a vigorous expenditure, and the Opposition had stopped them ? The Minister this year had asked for railways a sum of £1,347,000. The House granted him £979,000. 