BUDGET SURPLUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 128, 1 June 1937, Page 13

BUDGET SURPLUS.

MINISTER KEEPS IT. I NO LAVISH EXPENDITURE, j SOUTH AFRICAN PROSPERITY. CAPETOWN. In presenting his Budget, Mr. N. C. Havenga. Minister of Finance, has been able to announce a surplus of £>,000,000, his fourth consecutive surplus since the Union left the gold standard in the beginning of 1933. The revised estimates for receipts and expenditure were and £37.550,000 respectively. Receipts from taxation exceeded the estimates under nearly all heads, income tax and super tax being especially buoyant; and a substantial rise in stamp duties is regarded even by the conservative Mr. Havenga as incontrovertible proof that the Union's prosperity is not declining. He persists, however, in refusing to budget lavishly or to dispose of his surplus open-handedlv. Three million pounds of the surplus will be used for debt redemption, and the rest will be transferred to loan account. Grave Danger. Mr. Havenga has decided that the present prosperity of the Union must be used in order to make the country's capital position as strong as possible. There is a grave danger, he says, "that the people of the Union will forget that prosperity is almost inevitably followed by depression," and he has in consequence decided deliberately to budget j for a surplus next year in order that (he may still further strengthen' the I Union's loan account.

| Income tax payers therefore receive no concessions at all. Mr. Havenga argues that our income tax is already | so low that it is the envy of the world. His only real concession to taxpayers j is a reduction in Customs dues which will ! involve a sacrifice of £650,000; the most j imi>ortant of these reductions is a penny j ; off petrol. I I This sacrifice of revenue, plus ini creased grants of certain 6ocial services I (including £233,000 to the Native i Development Account and £750.000 for old age pensions), and a few minor items, will leave an estimated surplus next year of more than £2.500.000 for debt redemption and transfer to loan account.