PUBLIC FINANCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8296, 6 December 1912, Page 6

PUBLIC FINANCE

The Minister of Finance states that the revenue in the eight months ended November increased by £409,480 compared with the corresponding months of last year. . The expenditure increased by £143,260.

it would be unwise to attach much importance to the interim financial statement made by the Hon. J. Allen down South on Wednesday. Briefiy, the revenue and expenditure for the eight expired months of the current financial year show respective increases over the corresponding period of 1911 as under:— £ Revenue 409,480 Expenditure 143,260 Excess of revenue £266,220 When the Allens and the Masseys were in Opposition they were wont to explain with great noise and frequency how easy it is to manufacture surpluses by simply over-taxing the people and under-supplying their requirements. They are now proving by practical demonstration the truth of that argument. It would be unfair to expect very substantial changes in the few months during which the present occupants have adorned the Treasury benches. The new team, however, shied at the hurdle of Customs tariff reduction with a disappointing suddenness, and displayed in their first session’s run not the least desire to lift taxation from the shoulders of the burden-bear-ers- True, there is a nominal increase in the graduated land tax schedule, but that is to be compensated by “reform” of the system of valuation, and in any case the schedule has been- very carefully adjusted so that the bigger the owner the smaller is the rate of increase. However, Mr Fisher has given the weight of whatever authority he may possess to the promise of Customs tariff revision next session. We shall see. Meantime, the revenue from this source has gone up in eight months by £53,490, or nearly £7OOO a month, a rate of increase considerably greater than the expansion of population. Of the total increase £228,477, or 53-3 per cent, is credited to railways. That, however, does not necessarily indicate improvement, which can only he shown by a decrease in the percentage of expenditure to revenue. As trains are being run at a loss in every direction, and as the Minister admits incapacity for his job by telling the High Commissioner to find a mild-mannered young man in England to take it over, it is altogether too much to hope that any appreciable share of the additional receipts will go to strengthen the financial position of his most important public enterprise. If the returns maao public by the Minister have any significance, it is that they show continuance of all the bad old methods of screwing money out of the public pocket, together with a contraction in expenditure which may be thinly disguised as “reform,” but looks more like jerrymandering—such as the cessation of railway building in certain districts preparatory to starting fresh works in the more favored localities represented by leading apostles of Shamreform.