The Lyttelton Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1891.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9445, 20 June 1891, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1891.

The financial results set forth in the Financial Statement make that, document unique. It is many years since we have seen such a pleasant state of things arrayed in the uncompromising "black-and-white of figures. By careful management, aided by a certain amount of growing prosperity, the Treasurer has every reason to hope that by the end of the current year ho will be in possession of a surplus representing over a quarter of a million of money. From his pradeeessor he received something over .£140,000. The rest»will accrue, is accruing, under his own regime. The moderation of the revenue estimates is the thing that strikes us the most in this connection. The Treasurer has had the moderation to anticipate actually less revenue than last year’s. That ho might easily have made things pleasant by putting on another hundred thousand or so to his estimates, no one who reads these figures can deny. Many Treasurers of the past would have done it, and great would have been the fireworks thereof. This one was under the stimulus of a pledge to change the incidence of taxation. It was a strong temptation to make a show on paper, that he might make his finance more acceptable to the country at large. But he withstood the temptation—an act of prudence which reflects great credit on the Liberal Government in a direction in which it is not the fashion to seek credit for Governments of that political colour. We may expect to hear many criticisms from friends professing themselves astonished at the Treasurer’a moderation. We do not share that astonishment, because prudence is precisely the virtue which Mr Ballanco’s whole career proves that he possesses. Instead of being astonished, we are convinced by the Treasurer’s moderation that the revenues he anticipates will come in with the regularity and completeness so desirable.

With prudence of calculation, we have in the Budget great judgment in expenditure. The retrenchments we are all familiar with, and their effects on this Budget and future Budgets are becoming apparent. Their effect on the well-being of the Civil Service also will be admitted more and more from day to day, especially after the Ministerial scheme, which has been exceedingly well received in the sketchy stage even by the Opposition press, comes to bo adequately understood. The judgment to which we more particularly refer, however, is the judgment shown in the disposal of the handsome surplus. With a quarter of a million of money in hand, does the Treasurer emulate some of his predecessors? Does he invite any member of the House to “ take up his Bill and write?” Does he do that which will construct a schedule of roads and bridges and Post Offices,’such as that which was dragged into light in 1885 by the Stout - Vogel Government ? Let the world read, mark and inwardly digest. The Treasurer begins by redeeming £IOO,OOO worth of the half - million of debentures floating about in space trusting to Providence, with “ Micawber” written large on their shameless front. The first thing he does is to pay off a large instalment of the floating public debt. To emphasise this act of prudential, sound finance, he proposes, with the leave of the House, to add another £loo,ooo—mark the magnitude of the sum—to the first. And of what fund ? The fund which he has been persistently accused of preparing to misspendthe fund which his predecessor did his best to prevent his having ; the fund coming from the conversion operations now approaching successful termination. Let us look at this:—ln the first place, the law (not the unscrupulous will of the Government) provides that those moneys, on being set free by conversion, shall pass into the “ Public Works Fund secondly, the Government receives them with a request to the House to tyke so large a proportion as £IOO,OOO for the reduction of the floating debt; for the purpose, in other words, of letting the world see that the Colony is honestly bent on paying its debts, not with paper, but with hard cash, honestly and fairly earned.

But this disquisition, fascinating aa tha subject is, upon the second ,£IOO,OOO of honest reduction of debt, is a digression. Let v.s return to the surplus of 189192. Besides paying so much of the debt, the Treasurer, with the assent of hia colleagues, offers us the penny postage. The change is the logical consequence of events elsewhere in the postal world. The twopence for letters delivered in New ' Zealand and Australia has become an anomaly, and mast disappear. The day ia at hand when one'penny will be the recognised postage all tha world over. That flay wo are ashed in the Budget to anticipate by hut a short time. Of the advantages of cheap communication it in unnecessary to speak. The world recognised them half a century ago, and by some perversion of officialdom failed to apply the principle of cheapness in its fullest extent. One fact throws a flood of lighten the whole subject: in the beginning of the penny postage agitation Howland Hili estimated that a° penny would amply cover all charges for the longest sea voyage of correspondence. Since then the world has marched fast and far in the direction of cheapening the necessaries and the comforts of life, and facilitating the methods of transit, rb well as'shortening their times. The proposal to establish the penny pons i» a Btatesmau-liho measure; and, though at> nrst costly, will, as the Victorian experience ia proving, one day be profitable even from tho money point of view. That truly Libenif measure will ■i.A'crb .■Si-O.COO for tho year. An equally Liberal measure, tho opening up of lands for settlement, will absorb .£30.000 tuoie, spending it in the direction most likely to lead to a stoppage of the exodus, a circumstance, by the way, slaved with remarkable moderation by the Treasurer. W’« cougi'at'.■! t(o. him on the uosence of all reference to political matter ia that connection, as well aa

upon the care for the public credit which has placed an unfortunate truth in the least unfortunate of all possible lights. It is a contrast to some former references to the public credit. Farther, the Treasurer has the honesty to provide .£21,000 against the deficit in the Land Fund. To sum up, he has given, to mankind, in the shape of payment of debt, of postal concession, of opening up lands for settlement, what Treasurers have been tempted to give to party in the shape of unnecessary roads and superfluous bridges. Prudent, judicious, honest, statesmanlike, such is the finance disclosed by the Budget presented by the Liberal Government of 1891,