Taranaki Therald. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1909. THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14509, 12 November 1909, Page 2

Taranaki Therald. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1909. THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

Sir Joseph Ward has excelled himself in the Financial Statemeut he presented to Parliament on, Wednesday night. We have long known him as a cheerful optimist, for whom difficulties only arose to be overcome, or brushed aside — too often only the latter. But the breezy way in which he proposed the undertaking of additional expenditure on a large scale was only equalled by the confidence with which he spoke of obtaining the money to meet all this expenditure. A few months ago it was found necessary to apply the pruning knife very severely to departmental expenditure, and a quarter of a million was going to be cut off the annual cost of administration. At the same time the construction of roads and bridges was brought almost to a standstill, and in many directions there was evidence of the Government being forced to economise. Then Sir Joseph went to England and obtained « loan of a million from somewhere, with a promise of plenty more ii" he wanted it. Now discretion is thrown, to the winds and n "vigorous progressive" policy is to be continued, without regard to the expense. The retrenchments in the Civil Service, which were expected to bring about h reduction in the appropriation required, seem to have had little effect. There was to have been an annual saving of fully a quarter of a million, though this was not expected to take full effect at once. Still, most people looked for some substantial reduction in the annual appropriations, and there will be disappointment ,and surprise to find that it is only £48,275. In the year ended March 31, 1908, the actual expenditure under thiß heading was £5,085,343,; and there was. a big jmnp to £5,575,483 in the following year. Th» year instead of a further increase there will be a trifling saving. The permanent appropriations, on the other hand, show an . increase of. nearly £300,000, so that the total expenditure to be met this year is estimated at £9,015,878, as compared with an actual expenditure hist your of £8,785,613. Under these circumstances Sir Joseph Ward is forced* to look for sources of increased revenue, and he has found nix. He proposes to readjust the income-tax graduation. Last year incomes up to £1000 paid sixpence i« the pound, while those over a thousand pounds paid a shilling on the amount in excess of that figure. Now the tax is to rise gradually from sixpence io Is 2d in the pound, the latter on incomes of over £2000. Iv England the tax is a shilling, with a rebate to ninepence on earned incomes up to £2000. After the Boer War the tax went up to Is 3d for one year, but this was the highest rate for very many years. Of course it may be said that people with large incomes can well afford to pay the tax now proposed, and possibly they can, but we think that a man with, say, £1500 a year, who contemplated settling iv this country, i

would very likely be deterred from doing so by the fact that he would be called upon to pay a higher income-tax than in England. Yet we want a lot of people of that class. Next it is proposed to derive another £150,000 a year from death and succession duties, ancther deterrent' to the man with capital to- mike his home in the dominion. An increase in the long-distance railway fares is estimated to yield £100,000. The only exception that can be taken to this is tha,t it should be regarded as an additional source of revenue. These fares have been too low, resulting in loss to the department, and it is a departmental matter rather than of general finance. Still, if the change enables the department to reduce its call on the Consolidated Fund the latter will be the gainer, and if other unprofitable services were revised the gain might be still greater. The imposition of a primage duty, on all dutiable goods is a revival of an old tax, which should be regarded as one for an emergency. ' Sir Joseph only proposes , to impose ,it until the end of March, 1911, by which time he hopes the ordinary revenue will have increased sufficiently to enable him to dispense with it. The fifty per cent, increase in the tax on bank notes is another " despoiling of the Egyptians," as also is the new tax upon racing clubs. No very general exception is likely to be taken to these new impositions, but, with the others, they somehow give a bad impression. Critics of New Zealand finance are certain to say that the Minister of Finance is hard put to it to find the means to continue an extravagant rate 'of expenditure. And at the risk of being called old-fashioned and unprogressive we must say that we should prefer a more self-reliant policy than is being pursued. A year ago circumstances demanded a change. Our expenditure had been increasing for some years at a far greater rate than our revenue. A check came; wool went down with a run; the income "of the dominion suffered severely; and the unemployed stalked through the land. We were seised with a virtuous fit and, talked of curtailing our expenditure to meet our altered circumstances. Then very fortunately — just how fortunately we do not perhaps fully realise — wool recovered ; the Wizard of Finance went to London, after having offered England a Dreadnought at a cost of £2,000,000; and there he found an accommodating moneylender. The clouds of depression have passed away; the accommodating moneylender has more millions for us; "everything in the garden is lovely"; and we are cheerfully undertaking heavy new liabilities. Instead of reducing our expenditure we are going to increase it by £330,000 a year, and to meet this additional taxation to the extent of £448,000 a year is to be* imposed. Even then the estimated excess of revenue over expenditure for the year is only £4122, and the Supplementary Estimates and unauthorised expenditure have yet to ,be provided for. jfcer'tainly it is anything but a cautious Budget, such as circumstances seem to demand. If wool and our other products keep up and we do not suffer any bad seasons or other reverses we may be able to afford it all, but the margin i 6 dangerously narrow. That is the impression which the Financial Statement gives us. There are many points in it to which reference may be made later; to-day our space is exhausted.

Tho Mangoroi Dairy Factory Company pays out £3011 3s 6d to its suppliers for October milk, as against £2342 19s last year. Mr. John Foster Fraser is reported to have said in Auckland that after travelling all through the dominion the only towns where he saw drunkenness were InvercarsiU and Oaraaru. The agreement arrived at some time ago between the directors of the Mangorei Dairy Company and tho Hurworth Dairy Company was put into operation on the Ist of this month. Henceforth tho Hurworth factory will be run as a creamery of the Mangorei Dairy Factory Company. Some interesting particulars of the lot of the bank clerk in Sydney, as disclosed in a report issued by the Clerks' Union, are given by a Sydney exchange. In one bank the scale of salaries was reported to run : — First year, £40; second year, £60; third year, £80; fourth year, £100. "The position after the fourth year," the report adds, "is 'heaven help you.' There is no regulation for increment, and it is a matter of general report amongst the clerks that the superintendent has stated a definite intention of giving no clerk more than £200 per annum. Clerks, after 13 years' service, receive between £166 and £175, and there are clerks who, after 35 years' service, receive no more than £200 per annum The barrenness of these prospects nans an injurious effect on the clerks • «- ployed by the bank, and a ''<ck or interest in their work is engendered. Men are forced out of the service after giving the best years of their lives to 4t." In at least four of the banks operating in Sydney the conditions were found to be such that the clerks were aeetliintf with discontent. In three city offices Jtho salaries, from manager downwards, were found to run as under t— No. 1: 39 years' service, £214; 25, £190; 96, £186; 20. £165; 14, £160; 9, £130; 7, £112; and several juniors. No. 2? 31 yeata' service, £3oO; 27, £240; 87, £200; 19, £190; 14, £175; 13, £166; 7, £135; 6, £125; 4, £100: and several juniors. No. 3: 18 years service. £300: 34. £800; 13, £180; 10. £156; 11, £145; 7, £126; 5, £100; and several juniors.

A totara stump, which has remained intact while seven generations of men have perished, has been secured for tho Dominion Museum, says the Wellington Post, and may be seen there. It \% a stump with a history, which is thrilling enough, but the chief interest lies in the well-defined impress of the stone axe which was used for the fell-

ing some two hundred years ago. The surface shows plainly the bruising cuts made by the stone implement. Notwithstanding the long exposure and the decay which has set in, the marks are still distinct in many parts of the timber. So far as Mr. Hamilton is aware, this stump is the only specimen of its kind showing the impress of the ancient stone axe. The only thing resembling it in the museum is the end of a post from a pa, placed in the museum at tho close of the New Zealand Exhibition in 1867. The totnrn from which the stump has come was a giant, nearly five feet in diameter. It was laboriously hacked down by one To-Kai-whakaruaki, in the .Opetiki district, Bay of Plenty, and he hope'] to make himself a great canoo from the huge bole ; but a common distraction of those days, a battle with a hostile tribe, drew him away from his cntioc-making, and he wan slain. His totara became tapu, and was known as "the tree of Kai-whakaruaki." Long afterwards a Maori did have a notion to turn the timber to some account, and began cutting at it, but bad luck, attributed to the angry spirit of the dead chief, visited him. The totara was then allowed to Ho in state, mitouohed by man. The fact that the upper scarf had not been removwl from j the trunk, and the under scarf hi»«l been canted off tho ground, assisted in the preservation.

In the Magistrate's Court this morning, before Mr. H. S. Fitzherbert, S.M.,i James Nevin was fined 10s, in default 48 hours' imprisonment, for disorderly conduct while drunk.

Mr. J. C. Sinclair, photographer, obtained a very excellent photograph at the New Plymouth bowling green on the occasion of the opening ceremony on Tuesday, nearly every individual in the large group in front of the pavilion being easily recognisable.

The date of the election of members of thfe Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board has been fixed for the 24th instant. If the new Hospital Bill becomes law before that date there will in all probability be no need to proceed with the elections, the existing boards continuing to hold office until the first of April next, when the new boards under the Bill will take office.

We have received from the publishers, Messrs. Evans, Hill and Company, Wellington,' a copy of the "New Zealand Time-table." This publication, which will be issued monthly, contains summarised railway information and timetables, dates of sailing, and distance tables in nautical miles, particulars regarding climate and tides of New Zealand, and a tariff list of the leading hotels and boarding-houses in the dominion.

The educational section of the Central School exhibition should prove of great interest to teachers and others engaged in educational work. The first consignment of exhibits has arrived from the' Caversham School, Dunedin, and consists of some very fine samples of writing, drawing and brush work from P3 upwards. This exhibition will be the means of comparing the work of Taranaki children with that in other parts of the colony, and will no doubt act as a spur to greater exertion locally.

Lieutenant Shackleton has not forgotten his friends in naming the mountains he discovered during his attack upon the South Pole last summer, says the Lyttelton Times. The map showing the route of his famous journey fairly bristles with names that are familiar in New Zealand. The first peak encountered after leaving Cape Wilson and crossing Shackleton Inlet was named Mount Christchurch, and its easterly base Gape Lyttelton. Then on the map lying to the eastward of the Markham Mountains we find Mount Reid and Mount Tripp, and a little further on towards Mount Hope, at the foot of the glacier that led on to King Edward Plateau, Mount Allan Young, Mount F. L. Smith, and MountFox. The glacier rises from 1003 feet above sea level at its base to 7865 feet, at its summit, and as the party struggled upwards it passed Mount Bell, Mount Kyffin, Mount Dudley, Mount Deakin, Mount Adanut, Mount Marshall, Mount Wild, Mount Kinsey, Mount Buckley, Mount Darwin, Mount Mills, Mount Saunders, Mount Ward, and Plunket Point. There is very good reason, as everyone knows, why Mount Kinsey should be one of the most prominent points along the route. Mount Saunders was named in corapli-

ment to the young New Zealand journalist who accompanied Lieutenant Shackelton to England, and Mount Ida, one of the smaller peaks near Mount Hope, is said to be a tribute to this gentleman's taste outside his profession. Mount Emily and Mount Cecily, two of the last peaks observed, were named in the same generous spirit of appreciation. •