THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, June 1, 1943. WAR EXPENSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25240, 1 June 1943, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, June 1, 1943. WAR EXPENSES

The public accounts for the past financial year show that the cost of the prosecution of the war is now being more largely brought to account than it had been in the preceding years of the conflict, As the Minister of Finance indicated in the Budget in 1940, it is quite impossible for the Government to make firm estimates of the amount that will be required in the course of any year to meet the cost of the participation by the Dominion in a war of which the extent and character were always more or less uncertain. It was, therefore, not altogether surprising that in the two years which followed the declaration by the Dominion of war against Germany the estimates of the expenditure that would be necessary were considerably wide of the mark. ' The estimate of .expenditure in 1940-41 was £37,500,000. The amount that was actually spent was £ 27,104,905. For the succeeding year the estimate was £64,100,000. Again the expenditure was substantially less than the amount of the estimate. It totalled £52,377,395. In face of those figures the country was somewhat startled last year when the Acting Minister of Finance budgeted for a war expenditure of no less than £ 133,000,000. The gazetted accounts for the year show that this was an almost modest estimate. It was over-spent to the extent of £11,000,000. The explanation of the accounts which Mr Nash has given shows that the expenditure includes items that were not openly charged against the War Expenses Account in the preceding years. Among them is the lease-lend transaction, to which there was no previous reference in the public accounts of the Dominion. There must have been a good deal of curiosity on the part of the taxpayers concerning the results of the operation of this agreement with the United States, and there have been certain utterances which are likely to have created an impression that on balance the agreement had operated in favour of New Zealand. There have Joeen various acknowledgments in America of the measure of the service which the Dominion has rendered under this agreement, particularly, of course, in respect of the provision of foodstuffs that have been required for the armed forces of the United States that are engaged in the Pacific theatre of war. Apparently, however, as we gather from Mr Nash’s explanation of the accounts, the agreement involved the Dominion last year in a book loss of £7,000,000. It would seem also that the War Expenses Account is charged with the payment of subsidies for the purpose of achieving price stabilisation and with the cost of the purchase of stocks for the armed forces and for essential industries. Some question may perhaps be legitimately raised about the appropriateness of all the charges of this nature that are included under the general description of war expenses. Unfortunately details of the expenditure under the account have been withheld from the public in the past. If only with the object of preventing misunderstandings, the Government might reasonably be asked to furnish specific information concerning the payments which it has made under the “ civil subdivision ” of its war expenditure.