The Revenue.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 879, 4 January 1889, Page 28

The Revenue.

Considerable interest attaches to the revenue returns for the nine months just expired, and it is unfortunate that under the system in vogue in New Zealand the results of the three quarters are not likely to be fully known for two or three weeks. Moreover, when the returns for the third quarter are officially published in the Gazette they will not represent the complete results, but only those for about eight months and a half, the books being made up to date only at the close of each financial year. However, some fragmentary information on this all-important subject is now available, and with this, so far as it goes, we purpose to deal. The New Zealand Customs revenue for the month of December, 1888, fell, as was expected, considerably short of that for November, which represented large anticipations of the increased duties on case spirits, the latter coming into force on the Ist December. It is now estimated by the Customs authorities that those anticipatory clearances of November amounted to nearly £60,000. The total Customs receipts for December (excluding these for Kaipara, Wairau and Picton, which are not yet reported) were £106,419. Beckoned on the usual average for those places their returns when to hand ought to add about £2OOO to the total already knowß, bringing it up to nearly £109,000 in all. This is slightly higher than tbe results for December, 1887 (£105,068), but of course is greatly below the receipts of November, 1888 (£177,972), which, as already mentioned, were abnormally inflated by the clearances in spirits. If November and December be taken together they represent a monthly average of about £143,000, which is largely in excess of the estimated monthly average (£126,250) under the new tariff. The total New Zealand Customs revenue for the first nine months of the financial year, that is to say up to Monday last, was £1,093,332. The proportionate estimate for the three quarters of the year—allowing for the old tariff having been in force for the first two months, and the new one during the remaining seven months—would be £1,092,000. The actual receipts are therefore curiously close to the estimate. If, however, the three ports missing from the December returns contribute their expected £2,000 the Customs revenue will be between £3OOO and £4OOO to the good. It should be mentioned that the Customs authorities still persist in the eccentric practice of reckoning the new tariff as havingbeen inforce all the year, and, according to that mode of reckoning, the receipts are £28,167 short of the estimate; but this is clearly an unsound method of computation. The plain fact is that the new tariff has, up to the present date, yielded fully up to the estimate, and a trifle over. There is no reason to suppose that it will fall short during thp remaining quarter of the financial year. In all probability the estimate actually made of the new tariff’s yield will he fully, or at least approximately, realised —that is to say, the new tariff, which will hays been ip force for ten months of the year, will yield just about the sum it was computed to produce. The proceeds of the first two months, when the old tariff was in operation, were also fully up to the mark, and so the complete year will almost certainly realize the estimate. But there is not the slightest apparent likelihood that the ten months of the new tariff will make up for the shortcomings of the two months on the old scale, by yielding so much to the good as to make the aggregate revenue as large as if the higher duties had been in force the whole year. That is utterly improbable,. and if anybody entertains such an expectation it may as well be dismissed at once. The beer duty is slightly behindhand, but now that warmer and more “ thirsty weather seems to have set in it is tolerably safe to pick up, and there is no reason to anticipate/ a material shortcoming in that item • but in any case the item is not a large one. These are the only returns which as yet are to in anything like a definite shape, but enough is known on a few other points to en-

j able some approximate idea to be formed as to how matters financial are going. Property-tax will bring in its full estimate at least. That rests on a sound and specific basis, and must come in whatever happens. People cannot escape that, as they can Customs, by reducing consumption. There the property is, and it has to be paid for according to the assessment now in force, be that assessment over or under the mark. No shortcoming in this respect need be apprehended. Stamps, we believe, have scarcely come up to expectations bo far, and although' they may recover to some extent before the 31st March, they can hardly be counted upon for the full sum set down. Bailways, as we have previously mentioned, are heavily to the bad, the shortcoming up to the latest return available being at the rate of nearly £IOO,OOO for twelve months. This deficiency will probably be lessened by Christmas and New Tear holiday traffic, which has been very large this year, but it must almost inevitably be large. The remaining branches of revenue will scarcely vary much from the estimate if an average be struck. One may be a little above, another a little below, but the aggregate will not greatly affect the Treasurer’s calculations either way. What, then, is the net result which may reasonably be looked for as the outcome of the year’s revenuecollection ? So far as we can see at present the year’s income—barring any unforeseen windfall, such as that which once enabled Sir Julius Yogel to convert a large deficit into a small apparent surplus—can scarcely come within £IOO,OOO of the estimate. We believe that there will be a shortcoming to quite that amount. Againßt this will go the savings effected in the public expenditure. But these cannot well he very large in the first year of retrenchment, because of the heavy sum which has to be disbursed in pensions on retirement and in compensation for loss of office. Next year, and thereafter, the saving will doubtless he great, but not this year. Therejwill undoubtedly be a large reduction in railway working expenses as compared with last year, therefore the net proceeds will be better; but this had to some extent been reckoned upon, so that it will not be wholly to the good in the balance-sheet. It is quite on the cards, therefore, that there may be a considerable deficit—using the term in its legitimate sense as expressing a difference between income and expenditure, to the debit of the former —and then will come the question how it is to be provided for. Additional taxation cannot be contemplated. If further retrenchment is feasible at all to any substantial extent, it can only be in the Education Department, and, notwithstanding the intense repugnance manifested by Ministers and Piu liament to any material economies in that direction, we shall be agreeably surprised if the Government and the House do not find themselves on the horns of this awkward dilemma —that they must either impose fresh taxation, which the country will not stand and cannot pay, or make up their minds at last to face the long-shirked problem of educational retrenchment.