The Press. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1866.

Press, Volume X, Issue 1197, 7 September 1866, Page 2

The Press. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1866.

Mb. Fitzhebbebt's scheme of finance differs from that of Mr. Jollie, chiefly in two points; he proposes to pay the provinces the full three-eighths of the Customs, and, in order to obtain funds for that payment, to spread the outstanding liability on account of the military settlers, &c, over three or four years by the issue of Treasury Bills. The brief digest of Mr. Fitzherbert's speech sent by telegraph, when compared with the statement of the late Treasurer, leaves several matters obscure; it gives the conclusions, but not the arguments and explanations by which those conclusions were no doubt enforced and elucidated in the speech itself; and we must wait till we get a full report before we can form an opinion as to the necessity for the imposition of stamp duties, which we had hoped the Treasurer would have found himself able to avoid. Mr. Jollies statement may be epitomised thus. The Ordinary Revenue was estimated to amount to £1,056,000; made up by Customs £850,000, Miscellaneous, £146,500; Stamp, Bonded Warehouse, and Distillation Duties, £59,500. To this must be added the available balance of the loan (mimes £20,000 reserved to meet discount and other charges incurred in the negotiation of what remains to be raised) £159,839; giving a total revenue from all sources of £1,215,839. The estimated expenditure was £974,500, or with the addition of £33,385, the supplementary expenditure for the past year, £1,007,885. The balance left for the provinces would therefore be £207,954, against £318,750, the three-eighths of the Customs which they wore entitled to receive. This expenditure included £200,000 required to meet engagements with the Waikato settlers and others, but not the Taranaki claims, amounting to £70,000, nor certain sums due to the Deposit, Beserve and Intestate E states Funds. Mr. Fitzherbert's estimate of Ordinary Eevenue scarcely differs from that of his predecessor, being £1,058,500, and including £850,000 from Customs, £50,000 from stamp duties, £4500 from bonded warehouses, £7000 addition postal taxation, and £1000 from distillation. Adding the balance of the loan, as above, we reach a total revenue, ordinary and extraordinary, of £1,218,339. The estimated Ordinary Expenditure is £738,808, with an appropriation to the provinces of £318,750, the full three-eighths of the j Customs, making a total of £1,057,558. | There still remains a sum of £306,500, absorbed by the telegraph, military settlers, &c, bringing up the grand total of expenditure for which the Treasurer has to provide, to £1,364,058. The loan being thus exhausted, there is an overplus of £145,719, which Mr. Fitzherbert proposes to cover by the issue of Treasury Bills for £150,000, with a currency so as to extend the payment over three or fourjyearo. Comparing the two estimates we find that Mr. Jollies ordinary expenditure, exclusive of money paid to the provinces, but including the surplus expenditure of last year, was £1,007,885, of which £200,000 was intended to meet the demands of the military settlers, and £109,000 for the current expenses of the Defence Force, Militia and Volunteers. Mr Fitzherbert's ordinary expenditure, also exclusive of provincial appropriations, and also, we presume, including the surplus expenditure, is £738,808, showing a difference of £269,077; but as the liabilities to the military settlers, &c, are otherwise provided for, the £200,000 applied to that purpose by Mr Jollie must be deducted, leaving a balance in Mr. Fitzherbert's favor of £69,077. Of this, £39,000 is accounted for by a reduction to that extent in the Defence Estimates; the remaining £30,000 is probably made up by a smaller retrenchment on a variety of other items, of which we have no particulars. With respect to the engagements of the colony to military settlers and others there is a great discrepancy in the two estimates, the one placing them at £200,000, the other at £309,000. We are not informed how the difference arises in the calculation of liabilities under this head, but

possibly Mr Fitzherbert includes the i unsettled claims of Taranaki, amount- , ing to £70,000, part of which Mr. j Jollie proposed to meet by an extension ] of the loan, and the sums subtracted i by former Governments from the j Deposit and Reserve Funds. Mr. , Fitzherbert'e estimates, taking them ; altogether, involve an expenditure of nearly £150,000 more than those of . Mr. Jollie, but on the other hand he appropriates £110,000 more to the provinces, and also pays off liabilities to the amount ot £109,000 for which Mr Jollie had made no provision. "We must defer further comment to another issue.