The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1932. DOMINION FINANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 494, 1 July 1932, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1932. DOMINION FINANCE.

TO FIND that New Zealand is £400,000 better off at the end of the year than it expected to he, despite an unforeseen expenditure of £371,000 on exchange, is a matter for very warm congratulation, and is not to he discounted hy the fact that the deficit is still over two million pounds. Without this extraordinary item for exchange, the deficit, originally estimated at £2,500,000, would have shrunk to something like, £1,750,000, and of that amount £1,120,000 is represented hy a subsidy on unemployment, of which the State has now disembarrassed itself. Within the past three months, indeed, we have been moving from weakness to strength rather than in the other direction. Mr Downie Stewart’s April proposals for a manageable deficit of £2,000,000 for the present year depended upon the raising of a further $2,200,000 of direct and indirect taxation, hut by the end of the month he was able to announce that hy- a hypothecation on reserves, y-iclding £2,500,000, he was able to abandon' the idea of any further taxation. And despite the fact that we are now at the end of our resources as far as reserves are concerned, the financial situation is being firmly and capably handled, and provided a policy of stricter Departmental economy is pursued, the facts of the situation will inspire a feeling of confidence rather than pessimism. THE STUMBLING BLOCK. VON PAPEN’S sudden demand for the removal of the discriminations in the Versailles Treaty- strikes an uneonciliatory and, to the oilier Powers, a disappointing note in the discussions at Lausanne. But this tactless move on the part of the German Chancellor may he taken as some indication of the strength of Germany’s resentment over the disarmament clauses in the Treaty. To the Allies, and particularly to France, they are a guarantee against further German aggression, but to Germany they- are a humiliating punishment from which, Dr Bruning once declared, “ The struggling ups and downs of the last twelve y-ears have logicallydeveloped.” Indeed, Dr Curtius, a former German Minister of Foreign Affairs, attributes the failure of successive international conferences to the fact that the Versailles Treaty denies the principle of equality, and he imagines that Strcsemann would say to-day, “Do you not see that from the graves of the nations’ dead hopes demoniacal spirits of negation and destruction arise? From the inwardly- untrue, unnatural conception of peace universal disaster has come.” The French stress the need for security, the Germans ask for equality, and it is on the reconciliation of these two issues that the success of LaiJSamie depends. RUGBY RULINGS. U INTENTIONS of the founders of the game,” upon which a critic of the “ Star ” relies in opposing certain colonial Rugbyinnovations, can never be known even to the Rugby- historian, for just as cricket has evolved from the day-s of long baseball clubs and square halls, and is still in an evolutionary process, with an eight-hall over in Australia, and a six-hall over in England, so Rugby has undergone violent changes since the'day when an enterprising small boy first ran with the hall in his arms. To suggest that colonial innovations make it “ easier to win,” as the correspondent says, has no point, for it might just as well he said that they- make it harder to win, since one team must win and the other lose. Actually, they improve the game and make it more pleasant for players and spectators alike. At the worst the correspondent simply charges colonials with a virtue that St Paul extolled when lie exhorted the Corinthians to so run that they might obtain. And the point of the remark that those who play- the game should control it is just New Zealand’s grievance, for, having attained supremacy in the Rugby world, she has so far failed to obtain an effective voice in the control of the game.