The Poverty Bay Herald AND EAst Coast News Letter.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1049, 13 March 1880, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Herald AND EAst Coast News Letter.

PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. j ( ' SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1880. T#B returns lately published in the Government Gazette, giving the receipts and expenditure of the Consolidated Fund for the six months . ending the 31st December show an alarming decrease in the revenue. They indicate how real were grounds * >: ftr the fears expressed by Major Atkinson as to the difficulties of making income sufficient to meet out-goings. Fortunately Parliament , *neess this year much earlier than j when the last session was called By this arrangement we shall be able to learn the true state of things and discover how our difficulties are to be tided over. The s truth, when it has to be told, will show thafr nearly on every head the revenue receipts exhibit a large .decency on the estimates of the Treasurer. Customs, stamps, land .fund, railway receipts, all tell of a r .ialiing off. ' The estimates of anticipated receipts for nine months ending 31st March amounted to £2,445,200 ; the actual receipts for six months ending 3i*fc December were £1,306,067. If to this sum we add one-half, to represent tho receipts at the same ratio for the March quarter, we have , .£1,9,50,000, which in round figures ' IJl ilrbuld show a deficit for nine months of close tipon a million sterling. The 4 actual expenditure of the six months including £131,824, the debit balance from last year, was £1,980,000 or £680,000 in excess of the receipts. At tie same rate excess of expenditure over receipts at the end of >1 Match will amount toover one million starling, and this can only be im„proved,, .proved, upon by an unexpected "recovery in the revenue, or an equally unexpected and sndden reduction of expenditure. The property tax will _ ~ V"^ t0 *^ c relic ? of revenue .., ~ii*3 months, but a c 0^ s Nrable contribution u«,, c landt&fcN^ on i 9t October, a^

only lately collected, will come to account before 31st March. Only .£33,000 out of an estimated sum of £147,000 had been collected before 31st December. But taking this into account, and allowing for some other probable ameliorations on both sides of the account, we cannot hope to face the next financial year with a smaller deficit than Our imports for the year are sure to been a much more prudent scale than those of 1878 and 1879. The softgoods trade for instance, is ruinously overstocked, and the orders sent Home have been greatly diminished ; all this must tend to attenuate the Customs revenue during the whole year. We are therefore in the unhappy position of having to acknowledge a large actual present deficiency, and a continuous if not a progressive deficiency for the whole of the business year 1880, which includes three months of one financial year and nine months of another. There are, indeed, as we recently pointed out, cheering signs of improvoment in our general financial position and commercial prospects. But heavy taxation must needs tell upon receipts, and we should like to ask those who blame the present Governmenr for their " all-round " property tax how they would meet such a deficiency as stares us in the face. We shall, says our contemporary, the Bruce Herald, want something like a million and a-half of fresh taxation before March 1881 to balance accounts, without adding to our heavy load of permanent debt, and the property tax will not produce, as we believe, £400,000. The commercial outlook, then, is darkened by the cloud which hangs over the Colonial Treasury, and we would entreat our readers to endeavour to grasp the figures we have briefly summarised, in order to a clearer understanding of the Bacrifices we must be called on to make. Expenditure must be rigorously cut down, and the disposal of the poor remnant of the £5,000,000 loan must be such as to secure some substantial return for the money laid out. By this means, and the application of the pruning-knife of every department of the public service, we may tide over our difficulty till land revenue comes once more to our aid. But we pity the Ministry to whom fate has committed the hateful task of teaching economy in such herioc method. Well may Sir George Grey, in his comfortable retirement' at Kawau, thank his stars that he is no longer Treasurer of a colony whose finances are in such a mess. That our difficulties have accumulated to so alarming- an extent is in great measure due* to his want of foresight, and the recldess extravagance of his colleagues. The last they can now do is to cejwe from embarrassing a thoroughly honest Government "which has in .hand the hardest task that ever fell to the lot of a Colonial Ministry,