NOTE AND COMMENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3647, 25 January 1899, Page 5

NOTE AND COMMENT.

Tho opponents of the Government are troubled in soul because,

1 TUB colony’s , St’T.I’LUS.,

in spite of all their doleful predictions of wrack and ruin, tho country continues

to .prosper,-. and the Colonial' Treasurer is able to show an clastic revenue, and can indulge the hope of having at very substantial surplus in hand at tho end of March next. These jiatriotic Conservatives would, apparently, be-.well pleased if something would only happen to verify-their pessimistic prophecies. If tho Government wore to make default in, tho payment of interest to the British bondholders, they would bo delighted; if the whole Civil Service had to go without salary for a month, they would go into ecstasies of joy; while if tho Treasurer onl-/ came down with a good round, thumping deficit of tho genuine old Conservative kind, they would positively shriek with pleasure. Hut improved methods of taxation and ad-

ministration continue to yield good financial results; economical ’ manage ■ meat Enables tho estimates of expend,, turd to more than cover tho actual

amount spent;.and tho surpluses tha l ' are syi onymous v» ith Liberal Government follow each"other with most distressing regularity. Hence - the “Post” is in tears, ' dep.oring the wickedness of a Treasurer who is so lost to all sonso of shamo as to raise more money than ho spends; so “ ignorant” as to under-cstimato his revenue and so inconsiderate as to make his estimate - of expenditure sufficient to cover ail contingencies. 11 There is nothing easier than to obtain crodi’, balances, wrongly called surpluses,” remarks our contemporary. Tho whole secret is in the sort of estimates he makes of the income and expenditure. Thiff. is the veriest nonsense that was ever'written on the subject. Everyone knows thr t national finance is some-/ thing more than, a question of bookkeeping and estimating. There is actual income and actual outlay; and

no Colonial Treasurer could ever show a ■surplus if his expenditure' year by year was continuously in excess of his re-

ceipts, The housewife who tried' to manufacture a credit .balance in hand by’ a process' of '‘ under and over ” juggling with estimates of her- income and outlay world find at the end of a month or year that the result ..was totally. unaffected by estimates, .bun depended 'entirely- upon her actual management of the money. . The same

is true of the affairs of any business

-concern, and it is misleading to assert • that anything different prevails with regard to national accounts, > It is. more hair-splitting to say that the Treasurer's surplus ' * should bo railed ip, credit balance ; , the people know what the words are intended to convey, and they are not so much concerned aboiit accurate verbal description as they are about’ the real existence of the -surplusor credit balance. The reality of these evidences' 1 of 'sound financing is no longer disputed; indeed; the complaint, now is not that the surpluses are nonexistent., but that they are too substantial and too considerable. p;;':' ' ,J: ' V'.t'f.v " ‘-'--'V’4 !! t- 11 .: 5 ;;: 1 .; 11 ," |-v; In its most querulous manner onr evening contemporary

SOME (j unit lino us . cumoiair.

keeps asking why tho Treasurer did this or that, hut the over - recurring . question is, Why does he

- continue to show an excess of ■ revenue over - expenditure ? ,M r Sodden apparently believed that the consumption of beer would fall off, and lie collided upon a decrease of eleven hundred pounds in the beer duty for the current year; but the people persist In drinking the colonial brow, and the revenue instead of declining has ■ increased; so the " Post ” asks; “What can bo thought of a Treasurer who makes such blunders ?” It is rather hard that Mr Sodden shoxdd. be upbraided for possessing a too lively faith in tho growing abstemiousness of Now Zealanders, and that such faith should bo characterised as a “blunder” by a journal that ■ professes a zeal for temperance end a genuine admiration for young Now Zealand. The “Post”' goes on to a^ltr—Why did the Treasurer make “ such a deceptive estimate of

the railway revenue ?” ■ It seems that . instead, of tho railway accounts just about balancing, as was estimated, they - will show a surplus of nearly £IOO,OOO. To vary tho question it may bo asked— Why have trade, manufacture and production been so prosperous in New Zealand ns to’ swell tho railway receipts ? Tho criticism is really a wail over’ the growth of tho trade of the colony. ■■ After asking similar questions regarding the estimates of territorial, land tax and income tax revenue our coutompr.rary conclude-); The whole of this question of making estimates requires probing, and no wonder if there aro many members of the Opposition willing, and capable (o deal vi’.h it, , or, must it he , lefb to Mr .Pirani and tho Left Wing ?” If wo might venture an opinion, wo should say that the task should 1 ho left to those financial exports, Messrs Taylor anil Pirani. They at auyrato will not bo hampered by a practical knowledge of the difficulties that besot Conservative Administrators ton to fifteen, years ago, when in. spite of tho utmost toil and ingenuity deficits rccai red with ~ a depressing - persistency. Captain Russell and -Mr Roliosfon know too well that surpluses cannot be manufactured by artifice. Let us sco how the converse of tho “Post’s” reasoning would apply. to the era of Conservative deficits. “There is nothing easier than to obtain debit balances, wrongly called deficits. If !t Treasurer choose to* undor-cstimato tho expenditure and over-estimate the revenue, a debit balance can easily be - Sot.” How would the Conservatives like to be told that their late Treasurer 'was so enamoured of deficits that ho “purposely and ignorantly” twisted’his estimates so as to show an annual .loss, when it would have been -just as easy for him to have demonstrated a profit ? Tho tiling is of course a gross absurdity. Surpluses aro tho unfailing evidences of sound management and of general prosperity; deficits arc as certain signs of

faulty financing and general depression. We defy all tho genius of the Left Wing party to make the reverse proposition parade as truth. '