STATE ECONOMIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 215, 11 September 1925, Page 9

STATE ECONOMIES.

HON. A. D. McLEOD'S CLAIMS. ARE THEY SUBSTANTIATED ? BUDGETS WHICH DO XOT ESTFOKM. One of the crying needs of the Dominion at the present time is a plain, precise and authoritative statement of its financial position. Without this Vo per cent of the taxpayers—which means, of course, 95 per cent of the adult population—can obtain only the haziest iaea. if any at all. as to how the affairs of the country are being managed or as to what the future may hold for them. A Budget is prepared each year by the high officers of the Treasury, and in due course it is submitted to the House of Representatives by the Minister of Finance; but beyond recording the increase of the public debt by so many millions, and the excess of receipts over expenditure by so many thousands, it contains scarcely an illuminative passage for the ordinary reader. Even the significance of the public debt is disguised by its division into "gross debt" and "net debt," there ■being a difference of some fourteen millions between them this year, and the surplus, as the excess of receipts over OX- ■ penditure is styled, always is disputed. The Minister's View. In these circumstances it, perhaps, is not surprising that the Hon. A. D. McLeod, the Minister of Lands, in recounting the financial achievements of the Government to the electors of Pahiatua recently, made quite a number of assumptions which were at variance with the recorded facts. It may be in the interests of public economy, my only purpose in writing, to examine one or two of them. "Let any unbiassed man take the Estimates for this year," the Minister %aid, doubtless honestly believing he was on safe ground, *'and I am bound to say that apart from interest and sinking fund charges and war pensions, he will agree that, in view of the all-round increase of certainly not less than CO per cent in wages, the increase in expenditure is not, with the exception perhaps of three departments, out of proportion with any other ten year period for the past thirty years or more." Statements to the same effect have been made in the House of Representatives on several occasions during the present session, and apparently have been allowed to pass by members who clearly should not have accepted them as a sufficient excuse for the continued growth of public expenditure. Treasury's Own Figures. If the figures issued from the Treasury are correct, they all are against the Minister of Lands. From 1900 to 1915. both inclusive, the expenditure by annual appropriations from the Consolidated Fund amounted to £70,965,065, an average of £7.096,506 per annum. This sum (£7,096,500) plus 60 per cent, which Mr. McLeod claims as a fair assessment for- the increase in the succeeding tenyear period, should be. therefore, the basis of comparison. Mr. MeLeod assumes that the wages paid during the period 1906-1915 were subject to no sharp increase, and though this was not actually the case, he may be given the point for what it ia worth. The increase of population, however, is a very material factor in.the increase of expenditure, particularly in such departments as Education, Public Health, Railways and Post and Telegraph, and this factor plainly must be taken into account if the comparison is going to be of any value. In 1906 the annual appropriations amounted to £5,035,136, and in 1915 to £9,303,355, so that while the population during that period increased by 25 per cent, the expenditure increased by 85 per cent. The Last Ten Years. In 1910 the annual appropriations amounted to £7,799,952, and in 1025 to £14,760,689, an increase approximate!}-, of 90 per cent in expenditure while the population increased by only 15 per cent. The average expenditure during the two periods under review, after making the generous allowance of 60 per cent for the advance in wages, increased by 5 per cent in the period 1916-1925, while the accession of population decreased by 10 per cent. Taking these figures as the basis of a further calculation, it would seem, after making allowance for the increased wages, that the expenditure for the financial year 1924-25 was £1,476,068 in excess of what it would have been had the basis of expenditure during the period 190G-1915 been maintained. The public has become so accustomed to reading of millions that it may regard £1.470,----068 as a comparatively trifling sum, but this represents only one year's excessive expenditure. Taking the ten years included in the period 1916-1925, and calculating the excess upon the same basis, it reaches the huge sum of £9.585,103. What It All Means. These figures, it may be well to emphasise, have nothing to do with interest, or sinking funds, or pensions, or public works. They refer solely to administrative expenditure brought to account each financial year. The average yearly expenditure under this heading during the period 190C-1915 was £7,096,506. as already stated, and the average expenditure during the period 1916-1925, £11,----981,379, an increase of or 68 per cent for each year 8 per cent above the 60 per cent advance in wages claimed by Mr. McLeod. It has to be remembered, too, that in addition to these substantial appropriations from the Consolidated Fund, the Education Department was assisted to the further extent of £2.225,----40? from other sources. But that is another story. Meanwhile it may be permissable to suggest that when the Government nest feels moved towards the appointment of a commission or a committee of inquiry, it should set up one to investigate the various avenues of public expenditure. What is to become of Germany's surplus of women? This is the interesting question raised by the preliminary returns of - the recent census, indicating that there are about 2,250,000 more women than men, due largely to the ravages of the war. Progressive women claim to see in the preponderance of females the possibility of woman's further emancipation, and her entering into fields of work heretofore reserved for men. They hope by sheer numbers to force the men to accept equality, of the sexes.