Surpluses.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14984, 3 June 1914, Page 8

Surpluses.

Nobody on the Reform sido ha& hitherto paid any attention to tho rather silly statement of the Opposition apologists that surpluses under tho Reform Government aro either much less than tho lowest "Liberal" surplus, or else, as somo of tho most 'progrcssivo" Opposition financial experts solemnly suggest, even non-existent. Since, however, our Onpositio.i friends will persist in thoso mis-statements, we may remind them of a few facts from the Budgets of tho last seven or eight years. At Milton, th« member for Avon declared that "the huge surpluses of tho old "days were disappearing," and ho hccamo specific to tho extent of saying that "tho country went

'• to tho bad by £2o0,000" during 1913-14. meaning that the actual balance of current revenue over current expenditure, was £2.50,000 less than in 1912-13. He admitted later in his speech that Mr Allen might, had he followed tho "Liberal" practice, havo counted in his revenue £130.664, the proceeds of land sales. So that tho country "went to the bad"—tho credit balance was less than in 1912-13 —by £111,336. Tin's is true enongh, hut the strike and the smallpox epidemic account for more than that in direct expenditure, and for still more in loss of revenue. When account is had of these entirely abnormal events, it is plain that the good financial position established by the Government further improved, and by a very large amount.

Every year there is an opening "balance.in the Ordinary Revenue Account. Then tho revenue comes in, and out of the sum of these two amounts there must be provided : —(1) the current expenditure, (2) a rote to the Public Works Fund, and (3) a final balance, which is conventionally called the surplus. In the comparisons that follow, in order to make tho basis of comparison uniform, we add to the revenue for 1913-14 tho sum of £135,664, the land 6ale procoeds, which were always included in the revenue in other years. In the year 1908-9, which wo may call the meridian, as it was the middle of the Ward regime, the year opened with a balance in hand of £765,849, and it ended with a surplus of £184,321. This final balance is less than a third of the averago surplus under Reform. It may interest Mr Russell to know that the balance of revenue over expenditure in that year was nearly £630,000 less than in 1907-8, so that, in his own phrase, tho country in that year went to the had hy £630,000. In 1909-10. the surplus was £432,316, which is less than either of the surpluses of 1912-13 and 1913-14. Moreover, in 1909-10, Sir J. G. Ward, had he mado the averago transfer to Public Works, would havo wound up with a deficit. Had he in that year transferred to tho Public Works Fund out of revenue tho sum of £750.000 (as tho Reform Government did in 1912-13) thero would havo been a deficit pure and simple, of £317,68-4. But as Sir J. G. Ward could not hear such a startling exposure of failure, ho saved tho situation by adopting tho quite extraordinary courso of omitting tho usual transfer to public works. Despito the manifold villainies which tbo '-Liberals" sco in the Reformers, despite the strike and the smallpox epidemic, and despite tho financial mess which the Government inherited, and which, if the truth were known, the Leader of tho Opposition was glad to leave someb *-dy elso to clear up and overcome, Mr Allen was able to show a surplus (calculated on the "Liberal" basis) of £562,569 (which is the sum of tho actual balance and tho land sale proceeds) after transferring £675,000 out of Tevenue. If wo leave out of account altogether tho initial and final balances and the transfers to public works and consider only the actual receipts and tho actual expenditure, we find that tho averago credit balance during the last two years was over £590,000. In two of tho middle years of the Ward. Administration the credit- balance was far less than half that amount. Our "Liberal" friends, in view- of these figures, would really do better to givo up their curious experiments in Wardist arithmetic aud face the fact that the country's finances are thoroughly sound, and that the public knows it