UTTERLY MISLEADING IMPLICATIONS

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 111, 6 November 1908, Page 8

UTTERLY MISLEADING IMPLICATIONS

" The implications underlying all this are utterly misleading, as will be at once eeen from the following facts : — " Last year the Government made — in order to secure for the people a free bieakfast table — Customs remissions amounting to nearly £400,000. So that, assuming ttie imports into the Dominion remain the same, we must expect a drop of £200,000 in Customs revenue for the half-year in quostion ending September, 1900. WHAT THE ACCOUNTS' SHOW. "The return in question shows that instead of the Customs revenue dropping £200,000 for the six months— as we all should have expected — it has fallen only £140,000, or £60,000 less than, on the figures I have given, we should have . reasonably anticipated. THE SHEEP TAX. "Again, to assist sheep farmers, last year the sheep tax was remitted. A drop is, therefore, observed in registration and other fees in the return in question of £23,000. This accounts for the difference between the half : years compared. PASTOEAL EENTS DIVEETED. "Pastoral rents show an apparent drop of £25,000, but anyone who is not ignorant, or who does not wish to mislead the public, will tell you that there is no drop in the income whatever, but an increase from pastoral rents. Under the law passed last year the rents from a very large area of pastoral land — namely, the endowment land — amounting at least to £25,000 for the half-year, instead of going into the revenues of the Dominion as previously, are diverted from the ordinary account into which they were paid, and are paid into an endowment account for the purposes mentioned in the National Endowment Act of last year. ■ THE ANTICIPATED FALL IN REVENUE. "It will thus' be observed, if you total the anticipated fall in revenue from the remissions -of Customs revenue, the sheep tax, and the diversion of pastoral rents, you would have £200,000 as the fall in Customs revenue ; £23,000 from the remission of the sheep-tax, and at least £25,000 from the diversion I have mentioned- of pastoral rents. A SEASONABLE EXPECTATION. "This would total £248,000, but instead of this fall of £248,000 which was anticipated by the Minister of Finance (see the last Financial Statement' delivered by Sir Joseph Ward), there has been a small increase of £337. " In other words, had it not been for the remissions and diversion of revenue made to provide a free breakfast table for the people, to relieve our sheep farmers of the sheep-tax, and for the other purposes mentioned, we would have had an increase of revenue for the six months ending 30th September, 1908, of £343,000. "To make this clear, we would have had' £248,000, as shown above, and the increase of £95,000 whioh has -taken place in the following sources of revenue : — Customs, £61,000 ; registration and other" fees, £15,000 ; pastoral rents, £19,000 : total, £95,000. This added to the £248,000 makes £343,000. "NONSENSE TO TALK OF A "' CHECK."' "Hence the increase over the corrspouding six months would have been the same as in the two previous years. And it is idle nonsense to talk about this country having received a check, and to indulge in alarming forebodings about the financial future of New Zealand. "These observations could be still further emphasised by pointing out that the revenue for the last six months of the financial year is always much greater than for the first six months, for it not only includes the land and income tax, but it also includes the larger revenue which arises from the summer months of the year. lriE TEEASUEER'S ANTICIPATIONS. "It seems to me, looking at the figures available from all sources, that in the financial year which closes next March there will be a complete vindication of the anticipations of the Minister of Finance, and a state of affairs shown » which will be admitted to be in the highest degree satisfactory by everyone except critics of the jeremiad school, 'who will, no doubt, continue their reckless and misleading criticism unless in the meantime they should becomemiraculously endowed with a little more intelligence and a little more patriotism. QUARTERLY RETURNS A FALLACIOUS GUIDE. "Again, the quarterly returns can easily be made a most fallacious quide — especially in respect to expenditure ; and it is easy to make political capital out of the fact that tho last quarter's returns show that the expenditure exceeds the revenue by £26,000. The explanation is simple! These quarterly returns can never show exactly ' the actual expenditure incurred. Tliey depend on tho vouchers that have come iv for payment dnring the quarter in question. OUTSIDE FINANCIAL STEINGENCY. " Now, owing to some financial pressure or stringency which the public have felt, those having amounts due to them ,by the Government in connection with the works and public services have sent in their accounts more promptly and have obtained payment as early as possible. -This has hu/d tho effect of. crowding payments into the September quarter referred to much more thickly than in tho previous quarter. A COMPARISON. " For instance, for the previous quarter the expenditure on the departmental annual appropriations amounted to ' £969,000, while for the September quarter of 1908 they amounted to £1,527,000, an increase of £600,000, while the actual public obligations incurred would be about the same. The difference being that payment has been unusually closely pressed into the September quarter. A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION. "A striking illustration of this is shown in the Post and Telegrapji Department. In the June quarter, only £70,000 of expenditure is shown, while in the September quarter there is £226,000 shown. Railways, £239,000 in the June quarter, and £632,000 in the September quarter — the quarterly obligations of these services being about the same in both the June and the September quarters. "FOOLISH OR INTENTIONALLY MISLEADING." "To base, therefore, any calculation upon the September quarter for the purpose of snowing an alarming increase of actual expenditure, and to declare it to be a loss for the quarter, as suggested, of £26,000, is either exceedingly foolish or intentionally misleading. " The result of the crowding of payments into the September quarter will be a material reduction in the different items of expenditure to which I have referred {n detail. PROMPT PUBLICATION. "I only desire to add, since political capital is being made,, in the way I have pointed out, in respect to this quarter's returns, that had the Government chosen to withhold them until after the elections they would have hejm quite free to do so. The returns have been published as promptly as practicable. And, to further illustrate this, I may point out that in several earlier years the returns have not been published until a period after the close of a quarter, .which .would have allowed in

the present year the general elections to take place before the publication of the returns. "It is obvious, therefore, that the Government have rightly, deliberately, and voluntarily chosen to let the, public of New Zealand, know "the financial operations for the September quarter before the electors are called upon to vote at the genera! elections. OUR HIGH FINANCIAL CREDIT. "So much I have said entirely upon my own reading of the accounts of the Dominion, without reference or communication of any 'kind with the Prime Minister, who is absent from Wellington. On Saturday night in Auckland he will, in the course of his political address there, set out in full and convincing detail the financial position of the Dominion, and will no doubt give a complete and satisfactory account — not only of our public revenue and expenditure, but of the prosperity and general high financial credit of New Zealand."