THE COUNTRY'S FINANCES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 111, 3 February 1939, Page 8

THE COUNTRY'S FINANCES

The figures of the public accounts under the Consolidated bund, for the nine months of the current year ended December last, are not reassuring. Tt is true, as the Minister of Finance has pointed out, that revenue has been coming in very much on the lines estimated, and there is an actual increase for the nine months of £531,000. Ihe expenditure over the same period, however, shows an increase ot £1,304,000. In his Budget estimates for the whole year the Minister provided for a total increase of expenditure under the Consolidated Fund of £338,552; but, as shown above, this has already been exceeded by nearly £1,000,000. The position may be improved by economies in the remaining three months of the current year, but the trend so far has been in the wrong direction. The Consolidated Fund expenditure, of course, is not the only public expenditure which has shown this marked upward movement. The latest figures available under the Public Works Fund and the Employment Promotion Fund have assumed disquieting dimensions. When the present Government came into office the annual expenditure under the Consolidated Fund totalled £25,000,000, as against the £35,000,000 today. On top of this, of course, is the heavy increase in prospect next year under the Social Security Fund. It may be i ecalled that in defending the past and proposed increase of expendituie the Government constantly stressed the increasing value of the countiys production, and of our exports overseas. loday Ministers are faced with a falling off in the value, and, in some instances, the volume of our primary products. The latest /Ibslract of Statistics (that foi December last) shows that for the eleven months of last year up to November the value of our exports had dropped from £62,296,442 in 1937 to £59,064,949 for the corresponding period of 1938 —a drop-of 12.3 per cent. These figures are most significant. Taken in conjunction with the embarrassments with which the Government is faced in other directions, they should act as a salutary warning.