The Press. Friday, July 19, 1918. The Public Finances.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16268, 19 July 1918, Page 6

The Press. Friday, July 19, 1918. The Public Finances.

The Acting-Minister of Finance's statement of the national revenue and expenditure for the first three months of ' the current financial year has a satisfactory enough appearance, if looked at without regard to anything but the totals On both sides of the account. The revenue for the quarter was £3,603,084, which is £616,249 greater than the revenue for tho same quarter last year. The expenditure £4,053,705, an increase of £797,793. As was the case last year, the expenditure. exceeds the revenue, and this excess is over £180,000 more than it was in 1917. This has no bad significance, of course. On'the contrary, the position looks good enough, because this /ear the quarter's'expenditure has leapt upward through the quite abnormal addition of £686,664 to the charges for interest and sinking fundi. The principal increases in revenue were the following Customs, £114,012; Post and Telegraphs, £163,993;, and Railways, £230,293.' On the expenditure side there is little to call for remark, apart from the large increase in the interest change, which will grow larger and larger as the war goes on. We may note, however, that increases in expenditure of nearly £100,000 in tho , Railways Department, and nearly £30,000 in the Department of Internal Affairs, stand in need of explanation. One cannot make any strong inferences from the accounts of the first quarter as to the position that will bo reached at the end of the financial year, but the revenue returns appear to us to emphasise afresh the fact that the community is taking advantage of tho artificial prosperity of the country to spend money pretty freely. The "buoyancy" of the Customs and Railway revenue is a clear enough indication of that. The revenue will continue buoyant so long as the country is financing the war by means of loans, on the one hand, and on the other hand revelling in abnormal prices for our primary products. In due course, the community' will have cause to regret the Government's neglect to adopt tho policy of making the exercise of thrift something other than a matter for the free choice of the individual. It is. true that a large amount of revenue has been secured by war taxation, and is held as a kind of security against accidents, although there is no pT°Tmtee that it may not . be used after .uu >var to aid revenue indirectly rather than. to pay off debts already incurred. That reserve, how-

ever, has come from a comparatively small section of the community. The bulk of the population have remained free from war taxation, and

the Government's policy has gone in the direction of encouraging them to believe that this is what they have the right to ospect. We are very glad indeed to see Mr Massey and Sir Joseph "Ward placing the New Zealand view of Imperial questions before the peoplo and Government of Great Britain, but w*3 should like to think that they are in their turn learning somothing aoout war finance. If they look into this matter at all, thoy can hardly help coming to tlie conclusion that their own financial policy is in some most important respects grievously unsound.