DOMINION FINANCES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19009, 9 May 1924, Page 5

DOMINION FINANCES

PRIME MINISTER REPLIES Ti LABOUR MEMBERS (Per Tress Association). I WELLINGTON, May 7 ■ The Prime Minister replied to-day I follows to a further statement by ifl Christchurch Labour MJ’.’s: 1 ring to your telegram, I should perhnl state that it did not reach me uni ill press representative came into ray r<><| with a copy of your telegram in lv|| and asked me whether 1 had anylhil to say by way of reply. Some i J afterwards, the telegram itself read.l mo. On that point there is nothin mere to be said. 2. —Referring to the public accounl for the last two months of the linn ndi year, evidently your estimate of jj venue and expenditure was seriously I error, as the quarterly accounts, whd published, will reveal.. You arc, I course, aware that revenue and cxpoM ture for the last two months of 11 financial yeor are, by comparison wii the preceding ten months, nearly d ways abnormal, and calculations mul be made accordingly. 3. —You suggest that there has boJ some extraordinary expenditure duiin the last two months, :uid ask whet hl capital expenditure, such as repay nirl of Joans, has been met out of revemjl As a mailer of fact, repayment of I uni has nothing to do with the surplus I connection with ordinary revenue a J expenditure, which latter comprises p<j manent charges and departmental al propriations only. 4. —You refer to “The monthly lil ures from the Consolidated Fund havid been formerly published month II month, and that since 1922 the practid has been to withhold the- figures I'd January, February and March until ill surplus is declared.” Monthly figuil have not been published in the AI stract of Statistics since the beginnui of 1922 because of the frequent, misul derstandings which arose out of the di Acuity in reconciling department monthly figures with Treasury account for the same periods. Your telcgrnl implies that the monthly figures ha\ for the last two years been publish* as usual, with the exception of Jam ary, February and March. 1 am ii formed by the Statistician that as matter of fact the monthly figures hu\ not been published, in the Abstract* • Statistics for the last two years. 5. —Accounts for the last quarter < the year will be published not Jal» than a week from now, which will li in strict compliance with the pro? ii ious of the Public, Revenues Act. >