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New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5759, 3 May 1880, Page 4

The wave of financial depression which has swept over the Australasian Group has left ita mark on each of the colonies. In New Zealand the decline of the Cnstoms revenue for the past financial year 13 over £150,000. New South Wales Bhows a falling off in the past quarter of over £200,000 on all sources of revenue. Queensland returns indicate a deSoit of £116,000, and South Australia an amount little short of that figure. Notwithstanding that the stamp duties in Victoria realised £160,000 instead of the £70,000 estimated, the Treasurer is still to the rear on all sources of revenue to the tune of £80,000. In each of the colonies the territorial revenue has fallen off sadly, shewing that they are rapidly approaching a "vanishing quntity" in that- respect, and "cannot have their cake and eat it." A marked feature in the return is the diminution of revenue on articles of luxury. Concurrently is heard in every colony the cry of the unemployed, demanding work or bread, and caring but little whether the public works which wonld thus have to be undertaken may prove reproductive or otherwise. In Victoria, they have been offered stono-breaking, but the leaders of the unemployed told the Premier (Mr. Service) that they knew how to get that without coming to him, and that he wonld have to provide something better for the vast proletariat gathered in and around the capital of the colony, on pain of popular censure. The Victorian Premier appears to be little inclined to listen to anything of a socialistic tendency, and it will be. a matter of curiosity to see how the labour difficulty will be got over in that land of fierce democracy.