POST OFFICE SURPLUS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1043, 6 August 1930, Page 7

POST OFFICE SURPLUS

SHOULD BE ADDITION TO GENERAL REVENUE MR. D. JONES’S CLAIM THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Tuesday. Severe criticism of the Government for paying into revenue the Post 'Office surplus in one year and not doing so in another year was uttered in the House this evening by Mr. D. Jones (Reform—Mid-Canterbury) during his speech in the Budget debate. What does the Budget propose? he asked. Last year there was an increase of revenue amounting to £1,750,000 and the expenditure increased £1,000,000. This year the proposals net an increase of more than £2,000,000 in Budget taxation and include a refusal to pay largo sums that the ratepayers must meet. The Government started in officp with a clean sheet and a prosperous country. The former Minister of Public Works, the Hon. K. S. Williams, had stated that when he left office there were only 1,835 registered unemployed. The balance of trade in 1928 was £10.542,674, in 1929. £12.048.478 and this year there was a balance, but it was of exportable* meat, dairy produce and wool in the Dominion in excess of last year. At March 31, the values based on f.o.b declared values for last quarter amounted to £4,167.063 “This figure,” said Mr. Jones, “is the real balance of trade last session The then Minister of Finance accused me of talking nonsense when 1 stated that the deficit would be charged to the accumLilated surpluses left by Reform. The Budget proves I was right and there is still an accumulated surplus of over £2,000,000 left by the Reform Party. The Leader of the Opposition maintained last year that a large part of the profit of £525,000 on the Post Office Account could have been transferred to tiie revenue and previously it was charged to revenue That would have left no deficit apart from interest charges that should have been transferred to next year’s account. “This year there is a surplus of over £500,000 in the Post Office Account. This has not been paid into the Revenue Account. Last year the Government preferred a deficit and we claim that that is the reason it failed to transfer a part of the Post Office moneys. Such a system of finance cannot be justified in private business. Some departments may pay and some not. but they are all brought into the general account in the balance-sheet By its present policy the Government asks the country to find out of revenue all moneys required for departments that do not pay, such as the railway and to charge the deficiency to the Consolidated Fund, but do not credit the Consolidated Fund with the huge surplus from the Post Office Account “The Prime Minister att€ mpted to justify it recently by stating that the Government must have these reserves and indicated that away in 1940 certain things would bo required. The Government’s practice does not support its policy. It is now charging many things to the Post Office that should not be charged. The new steamer service on the Bluff-Melbourne route is an example. This is an admission of the soundness of my argument. “Under the Government’s present action, if postage was increased from Id to or 2d this revenue would not come into the general revenue, but would remain in the reserves of the Post Office, unless we passed on Act to make certain of it. This clearly indicates how unsound is this method of finance. The capital of the Post Office is about £10.000,000. It lias a depreciation account of £3,000,000. The Post and Telegraph balance-sheet in addition to this, indicates very clearly that considerable maintenance charges are paid out of ordinary revenue. How can the Government justify bleeding the country white with taxation instead of using what is really annual revenue? The Post Office is a monopoly and for this monopoly the Btate is entitled to receive handsome profits from the business. The Government prefers to raid the ratepayers and taxpayers of the Dominion rather than use the' money in its own possession. I say definitely that in times like these to take the shirts off the of the workers and producers of the Dominion, increasing unemployment and creating pessimism of the most damaging kind while the Post Office piles up its reserves and we pay the loss on other departments is a policy that this House should not tolerate.” ‘