THE PUBLIC WORKS FUND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12588, 24 August 1901, Page 6

THE PUBLIC WORKS FUND.

We have no doubt that our, correspond debt’s memory is at least as good as tha Premier’s in regard] to what was said by the Minister at his interview w4tfc the West Coast deputation', but we axe quite willing to believe that ivhen. Mr Seddon spoke of the “ critical position ” and the “ difficulty of making both ends meet ” he intcnded'to refer to the Public Works Fund, Hia Financial! Statement, indeed', has made it perfectly dear that his words could not be applied to the general finances of the colony. A realised surplus of £532,000 and a prospective one of £164,000 shew that the Premier had little cause for anxiety. But tho condition of the Public Works Fund is serious enough. The liabilities on March 31 last amounted to no less a sum than £1,292,095, nearly as much as the whole of the expenditure during the previous year, and even if the Premier should succeed in raising the new million loan and the £BOO,OOO still available from ’ the vote of last session, he will have only £1,240,420 at his disposal for the current year. The position may be made clear by the following figures;— ,£ £ ■ Balance 1900-1901 . . . ' 232,515 Transferred from Consolidated Fluid , , , , 500,000 Loans . . . . 1,800,000 — 2.532,515 Liabilities T,292,035 £1,240,420 The estimated expenditure on public works for tho current., year is £1,950,000, from which we judge that the Premier has abandoned {he attempt to “make both ends meet,” and is counting upon effecting some substantial savings in the account. If he should 1 carry out his present programme in its entirety, the liabilities at the end of, the .year, will amount to £709,580 after expending eveiy penny of the authorised loan money. We notice that the'Wellington .“Post” in dealing with these figures claims that there was no surplus at all last year, but really a deficit of £72,786. It gets at this result by excluding the balance brought forward from 1900-1901—-the surplus of £605,357 —from its calculations altogether, and then claiming that while the expenditure was £5,979,792, the revenue was only £5,906,916. If public' companies’ followed the same process their shareholders would never receive any benefit from the balances brought forward! from year to year. The amounts would simply disappear from the manager’s annual accounts. But of course the right system is to show the undivided portion of the previous year’s profits, and that is exactlyWhat Mr Seddon and all his predecessors have done in preparing their statements of the colony’s finance.