THE DIVISION OF THE SPOIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10595, 9 November 1897, Page 5

THE DIVISION OF THE SPOIL.

WHERE THE PUBLIC MONEY GOES. " FORTUNATE WESTLANDI " [by telegraph.— CORRHSFONIIERT,] Wellington, Monday. The total goldfields expenditure for the following three;years may be summerised thus ■1895. 1898. 1*97. Authorised cost.. .. £17,150 £35,782 £10-2,915 Expenditure oil works 15,278 31,921 44,771 Liability at end of year 10,3U 33,042 09,615 'The particulars of where it went to under the head of " Prospecting" for the last three years are interesting, In 1895 West* land gob £33,721 out) of £72,488, the total expenditure in the colony. In 1896 Westland got £23,932 oub of £61,946; and in 1897 £42,691 out of £80,477. Thus the percentages for Westland for the past three years are respectively 46.5, 38.6, and 53 per cent, of the whole. It was no mere figure of speech, therefore, when Mr. Scobie Mackenzie recently stated that Mr. Seddon used to return to his constituency groaning under the weight of the plunder ho received during the session on their behalf. Subsidies for roads and bridges, too, seem to have gone largely to the West Coast, and Mr. Seddon's electorate in particular, while subsidies for prospecting are also largely spent in that district.