VERACIOUS FIGURES.

Evening Post, Volume LV, Issue 125, 28 May 1898, Page 4

VERACIOUS FIGURES.

4 The Press Association has proved a valuable institution for the present Government, because, unlike an independent journal, it cannot strike back when it ie attacked with charges of suppression, distortion, or misrepresentation of Ministerial utterances. As a matter of fact, Ministers are not misrepresented by the Association, whose agents are of all shades of political colour. But, at suits Ministers to say so when they are not reported at what they consider sufficient length, or when, having made a blunder on the platform, it is convenient to charge it. upon the reporters. Assuming the Association report of the Premier's address at Fowlers last evening to be correct, he made statements there in reference to the interest paid on the public debt that are incorrect and misleading. He Ls reported to have stated that the interest paid in 1891 on the public debt was £1,858,252, and that the actual interest paid last year was £1,679,611. We doubt if even his last figures are correct, because this would show an increase of sinking funds over the year before last, of £19,944. The correct figures will probably be found to be £10,000 more than the Premier has stated. But assuming that the interest for the year 1897-98 is correctly stated, what shall be said of his figures of the interest paid in 1891 P The aotual interest uaid for 1891.

stated to bo £1,853,252, was only £1,021,697 This can be seen on referring to the Blue Books of 1895 1., 713., page 7. It may b< asked, then, how lias Mr. Seddon got the figures £1,858,252? If our readers Avil turn to the statistics for 1896, page 321 they will see that this £1,858,255 included sinking fund and interest draw, ing loan. Since 1895 a new mode b;u boon carried out in dealing with drawing loans which apparently makes our interest less, bufi really iv effect no change whatevei is made in the actual amount the colony has to pay. The variation of the system may be thus described : ' At the end of each year a certain number of bonds are paid off. The old system provided that the full amount ol interest and sinking fund on the total amount of loan was to be paid each year as if none of the loan had been paid off, but against this increase interest and sinking fund bonds were drawn in the first quarter of the year. When the bonds were paid off in the last quarter of the year, these bonds were redeemed. They are mere bookkeeping entries. At the suggestion of Mr. Gavin this was dispensed with, and only the actual interest aud sinking funds of the amount due on the drawing loan Was paid each year. This has made our interest and sinking fund appear less, though in effect it is a mere bookkeeping entry. But if our readers will refer to a. page of the statistics they will see there a note by the Government Statist that, in consequence of the altered mode of drawing loan, comparisons cannot be made between interest aud sinking fund paid now and that which was paid some years before. Mr. Seddon knows what has happened perfectly well. He was one of the Public Accounts Committee in 1895, and before him evidence was given of the change in the method, anfcwhat it meant. He knows the figures which appear iv Appendix I. to which we have referred, and he should therefore have known, even supposing the figures had been supplied to him, that when he said the interest paid in 1891 Was £1,868,252, he was misleading the country. He has overstated the amount by £236,555, an achievement quite worthy of the author of the surplus.