Evening Post FRIDAY, MAY 14; 1897. THE QUARTERLY ACCOUNTS.

Evening Post, Volume LIII, Issue 113, 14 May 1897, Page 4

Evening Post FRIDAY, MAY 14; 1897. THE QUARTERLY ACCOUNTS.

4 In our issue of Monday last we dealt with the yearly accounts of the Treasury. It is interesting to compare the accounts of the first quarter of the present year with those of the corresponding period of 1896. "We find,, then, that the Customs duties show a large increase. For the 1896 quarter they amounted to £461,273, for that of the present year to £513,094. We quote the Treasury accounts, for the Customs returns differ considerably. There is thus an increase of £51,821. Stamps show a decrease of about £4000. This may be accounted for by the statement made during the past 3 r ear that the executors in several estates were urged to pay in accruing duties before the end of the year, and did so. Income Tax shows an increase of say £12,000, Railways £25,000, and Miscellaneous £15,000. This last item will include interest collected, &c. The other items vary but littlss in the two years. There is, however, a considerable fall in territorial revenue. For the 1896 quarter it was £122,423 ; for the 1897 quarter £97,120, a drop 'of £25,301. Tke land revenue is given under three heads— cash land sales, deferred-payment land sales, and pastoral runs. In rents and miscellaneous for cash sales there is ;t fall of about £7000, and under pastoral runs, &c, about £17,000. This seems to indicate the need of scrutiny into the affairs of the Lands Department. The ordinary Departmental appropriations show an increase of £30,000, the main increase being in Railways. We note that there has been an advance of £85,000 to the Government Advances to Settlers Department. How is this i' The accounts of that Department are not published, and will not be, we suppose, until some time after the meeting of Parliament, There was a much larger expenditure on public works during the summer of 1897 than during the same period of the previous year. This may be explained by the fact that the general election took place in December, and the amounts of payments would not reach the Treasury till January. The expenditure in 1897 was about £45,000 more than in the corresponding quarter of 1896, The main increases were in Railways, Defence, Roads, and Telegraph extension. The railwaj'; however, on which expenditure most dwindled is the Main North Trunk line, only £6289 being spent on it. The. Hou, Mr. M'Konzie has not been slow in expending the loans at his disposal. In 1891 tha utmost he desired to spend in tha. purchase of private lauds for settlement was £50,000 per jear. For the March quarter just past lie expended £127,241 5s lOd, or aoout £80,000 more than he spent during the same quarter in 1896. The Assets Board got £94,090 of this amount. When the Government buys from the Assets Board it is cash down, but when it is a sale to Ministers' sons time is given. The conversion account is always interesting. There is one transaction there thatshows how the future is discounted. There was issued in 1895 to buy private lands £24,200 worth of debentures at 3i pep cent., due in 1896. Wo assume th» loan was raised at 8± per cent., as at the time it was obtained our 3£ per cents, were over par, and money was being obtained under the Local Consols Act at that rate. This stock has now been converted — at hovr many years' currency is not stated— at £10 premium per hundred. That is, the debt is now £26,620, which means that to save £48 per jjear for 30 years the debt is increased by £2420. We save £48 for 30 yean— that is, £1440, and we pay £2420 for doing so. And if the loan is for 50 years, we go on paying for 20 years S per cent, interest on £2420, and then have to pay that sum at the end. Surely such a transaction may fairly be characterised as a gross, waste of public money. It is quite reasonable to conceive that before 1926 interest may fall to 2i per cent., and in that event the loss would be correspondingly greater. With all our so-called surpluses, what need was there for such finanoingP We may add that W8 have not included brokerage, stamp

duty, and overlap interest to the cost. For the quarter these expenses were £1387, and the only conversion transaction was the one mentioned, and part of the Consolidated Loan Act (£25,000) converted into 3* per cent, stock at £2 per cent, premium. " The interest (overlap)," so the item is named, is worth noting. There has been paid £1044 of interest out of borrowed money, which sum, by right, should have been paid out of the Consolidated Revenue. The amount spent on roads for the quarter was as follows : — Public Works ... ... ,„ £24,910 Goldfields ... ,„ 5,054 Land Improvement ... ... 35,971 Loans to Local Bodies Account ... 26,303 £92,238 We have not included roads to purchased private lands, nor Cheviot roads. It is a large sum of borrowed money for roads and bridges for the quarter. None of this money has been spent in a directly interest-paying asset, and it is exclusive of moneys spent by local bodies under their Loans Acts. Where is this general Government road-making going to end ? Can the colony do justice to all by undertaking the making of local roads ? Surely our system of local government ii incomplete when the local bodies cannot undertake this function.- We note that Mr. Larnaoh boasts of what he has got for his distriot and for his constituents, and says the Government intends to undertake the management and maintenance of all main roads. If this be so, what will be left to local "bodies ? What is a main road, we wonder ? The finance of the country is not sufficiently considered by the public. It is, no doubt, often difficult to understand, largely because it is made purposely obscure. If, however, the people are hoodwinked, time will bring plainer vision, and when they realise how potent for evil to the country are ignorance and recklessness in the management of the national account, they will make a change in the accountants.