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New Zealand Mail, Issue 743, 28 May 1886, Page 22

(From the New Zealand Times, May 24. ) We cannot conscientiously congratulate tbe Evening Post on its very lame attempt to explain away its misstatements respecting our article on tbe results of the last financial year. Its mode of reply consists partly in making a fresh misstatement and partly in setting up an irrelevant side issue. In our article of last Friday we expressly stated that our comparison was made with the Treasurer’s Budget estimates the standard by which alone a Treasurer’s foresight can be judged. We did not profess to deal with his discoveries, two months later, of errors in those estimates. But inasmuch as the action ol Parliament in rejecting the Government’s financial policy had directly affected two items, Customs and Stamps, we did accept the Treasurer’s calculation of the extent to which his original estimate had been thus vitiated. No other items were affected by the action of the House, and therefore we had nothing to do, in that connection, with any subsequent admission of error. We stated explicitly that we were dealing with the Budget estimates, and any others were wholly irrelevant to our subject. But the Post on Friday, in commenting on our remarks, distinctly asserted, without any qualification, that we had “taken the original estimates founded pn the basis of the financial proposals embodied in the Budget, instead of the amended estimates brought down after the House had insisted on an alteration in the proposals first made.” We showed conclusively on Saturday that this assertion was absolutely inaccurate, and we proved that we had taken the “ amended estimate ” in every instance where they were affected by the “ alteration in the proposals made,” upon which “ the House had insisted.” The Post was compelled to admit its inaccuracy, and to confess that we had “ accepted the revised estimates in regard to Customs and stamps ” —which, be it observed, were the only items affected—but it proceeds to make the grave misstatement that this journal

“ altogether omits to say that it took the oiiginal estimate instead of the revised estimate as to the Kail way revenue,” further remarking, with its usual graceful courtesy, that the omission was evidently intentional and made to serve a political purpose, and that our statement was “ untruthful and wilfully deceptive.” Unfortunately again for our contemporary’s accuracy, the simplest “ verification of references ” would show instantly that there was no such omission on our part, but that we did most distinctly state that we “ took the original estimate.” Our words were these — “ Railways gave gross receipts of £1,044,304, which is no less than £71,096 below the Budget estimate.”

Nothing can be clearer, and the matter was made equally plain by the tone of the whole article which was explicitly devoted to a comparison of the Budget estimates with the actual results. In our Saturday’s article, too, we said

“As to railway revenue, no change was made by Parliament, and therefore we, of course, abide by the Budget estimate, which was not affected by the action of the House.”

This, too, is perfectly clear. The utter recklessness and incorrectness of our contemporary’s assertion are self-evi-dent. It is very unfortunate also in its mode of justifying the Treasurer, and we fear he will not greatly appreciate the performance. Our contemporary’s curious method of proving that the Treasurer was accurate is to urge that he admitted two months after the Budget was delivered that he had made in a single item a huge blunder of £66,000! To find out in two months that the Budget estimate was excessive iu one item by £66,000 is a singular way of proving that estimate correct. But the discovery of its excessiveness was made long before the Treasurer announced it in the House. We had pointed out previously that the railway revenue, instead of increasing, as he calculated, was “ steadily decreasing,” and we explained the reason why, namely, the undue lowering of rates to suit particular districts. As to the diminished grain traffic being the cause of the failure, we may remark that 413,846 tons llcvvt 3qr of grain was carried last year, or only 743 tons lewt lqr less than the year before, so that cannot account for the failure of the revenue by £71,690 to reach the Budget Estimate. We sincerely condole with the Treasurer on his defenders. There is nothing discreditable in making an over-sanguine estimate. Major Atkinson once was

much more out in the railway estimate than Sir Julius Yogel was last year. It is only these weak attempts to justify it that impart a suspicious appearance to a very simple matter. The Treasurer may well exclam “ save me from my friends.”