NEW SOUTH WALES FINANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12996, 11 December 1902, Page 4

NEW SOUTH WALES FINANCE.

It is evident, from the cablegrams we publi.sk this morning that the troubles of the New South Wales Government did not end with its decisive victory at the polls. "The measure it has introduced in the Legislative Assembly authorising the issue of four millions worth of Treasury Bills, with a currency of seven years and bearing interest at 5 per cent, has been amended, presumably by its own friends, almost beyond recognition. The currency has been reduced to five years and the interest to 4 per cent, and it is very doubtful, we sljould think, if the State Treasurer will be able to obtain the money he requires on, these terms. The public accounts for last month were so unsatisfactory that even the " Sydney Morning Herald," which stood the Government's fast friend throughout the recent elections, was bound to admit that they were not very encouraging. The land revenue fell by £60,000, compared with the revenue of the corresponding month of last year, and the railway revenue by £41,000. The ordinary expenditure showed a substantial decline, but the public works expenditure was still far ahead of the Government's proposals. The less friendly critics of, the Government took occasion to point out that in three years, without any increase of population or enlargement of tho functions of the State, or any big publics works, the annual expenditure had* risen from £11,786,400 to £16,126,09(V The explanation they offered was that the Federal tariff had poured gold in a, sort* of tropical shower into the New South Wales Treasury,, and that the Government had thought it necessary to spend it. The State' Treasurer, in defending his finance, seems to have given a good deal of colour to this., suggestion. "When times improve," ko ia reported to have said, "when trade and commerce revived, and when money had become more plentiful, the expenditure oi public money had invariably, no matter what Government was J:i power, increased according to the improved conditions of fthe country. . . . The present Administration had done what every other Government had done under similar circumstances since responsible government was inaugurated. . But it was also necessary for tho Government, on account of tho unparalleled drought, to expend more than it otherwise would do in order to find employment for the people of the State." Tin's amounts, of course, to a serious contention, that a Government should always spsnd the public money lavishly, when the revenue is lairge because it has always been the practice "under similar circumstances," and when it is small because it is desirable " to find employment for the people of the State." It is a convenient doctrine for a Treasurer who does not want to face the awkward question of retrenchment; but it is scarcely one we should have expected from a Minister who lately appealed to the country as one of the champions of economy. It will be interesting to see how far Sir John See endorses tho views of his colleague. The Premier is pledged to large reductions in the expenditure, and unless, he undertakes them at once the finances of the State will drift from bad to worse.