MORE ECONOMY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18235, 31 October 1922, Page 6

MORE ECONOMY.

Although the appropriations include £75,000 for strengthening the railways and the teachers' superannuation funds, the amount voted on the Supplementary Estimates last evening was only £177,491. against the provisional allowance in the Budget of £250,000. There is nominally a saving of £73,000, and but for the rule that actual appropriations must be made for specific purposes, there would • probably be no need for the additional supply. Taking the figures as they stand, with the revised estimates of revenue after deducting; the reductions in land and income taxes, the forecast for the current year compares with last year's result ais follows:—

1921-22. 1922-23. Actual. Estimate. Decrease. £' £ £ Revenue . . 28.367.405 25.320,900 3,046.505 Expenditure. 28,707,236 28.115,706 691,630

Deficit .. £339,831 £2,794.806 The Budget forecasted a deficit of £1,938,215. Since then, relief has been given in respect of income tax estimated to cost £686,600 and of land tax, estimated at £262,500, against which is to be set ent saving on the Supplementary Estimates. As a matter of fact, there is good reason to believe that the final result will be very much nearer a balance than the Estimates suggest. Revenue has a pleasant way of surpassing the estimates, and it will be against the conventions if the year's receipts fall short of last year's total by so much as £3,000,000, notwithstanding the fact that on the revised figures the Government anticipates a loss of £3,069,900 in respect of land and income tax alone. But the principal factor in the recovery is the economy' in expenditure, which in six months has amounted t0.£1,870,000 against the final estimate for the full year of £591,000. These savings will be cumulative during the current halfyear, but they already reduce the prospective deficit—to be met from the balance brought into the account at the beginning of the year—to £1,516,000 With vigilant attention to the need for economy, that figure may be wholly extinguished bj' the end of the year, but the pressure cannot be relaxed. The Government is pledged to further reduction of taxation next year, and with its balance diminished by the transfer of £1,000,000 to the Public Works Fund, it must face the necessity of further curtailing expenditure to the limits of revenue.