8.—6

by the sum of £1,400. The Minister of Lands anticipates a falling-off in the Territorial Eevenue of over £12,000, and I have therefore set down the revenue derived from that source as £240,000, or £12,278 less than the amount received last year.

Estimated Revenue of the Consolidated Fund (Revenue Account) for 1903-4, compared with the Actual Revenue of 1902-3.

Summarising the estimated receipts and expenditure for the year, the results may be set forth as follows : — £ Estimated revenue .... .... .... .... 0,528,600 Estimated expenditure .... .... .... 6,255,857 Excess of revenue .... .... .... 272,743 to which we must add the balance, £303,905, brought forward from last year, making a credit balance of £576,648. This is ample to provide for supplementary estimates, and also for a handsome amount as usual to be transferred to the Public Works Fund. CONCLUSION. I have now placed before honourable members many important matters affecting the colony. I have proved incontestably that financially our position is sound and strong. The figures given as to our public debt as compared with our assets, public and private, give £6 for every £1 we owe. Our population is fast increasing, and the indebtedness per head is more likely to decrease than to increase. The people in the United Kingdom fail to recognise the fact that the railways here are the property of the State, and that if sold to-morrow would fetch nearly half the money we owe as a public debt. They also fail to realise that the occupied Crown lands, from which a rental of nearly half a million per annum is received, are worth fifty millions; they are oblivious of the fact that the unsold Crown lands are worth another ten millions. The value of the auriferous and argentiferous lands of the colony it is almost impossible to estimate, but I shall be well within the mark by putting the value of them down at fifty millions. Then, again, there are the public buildings, and the post and telegraph asset, all State-owned. In addition to this there is the private wealth of the colony, amounting to over £240,000,u00, equal to £293 2s. per head of our population. There are in the colony approximately 437,000 adults, who, gauged by their earning and spending values, are equal to £200 per head of realised invested wealth. On this basisthe colony has in its adult population a commercial value of £87,400,000.

XXXIV

Differences. Estimate for 1903-4. Actual for 1902-3. Increase. Decrease. Revenue Account. £ 2,400,000 2,000,000 983,000 300,000 210,000 89,000 84,000 32,000 130,000 240,000 2,335,643 ! 1,982,551 978,939 296,062 200,684 90,400 88,881 32,968 133,203 252,278 £ 64,357 17,449 4,061 3,938 9,316 "ll9 £ Customs Railways Stamps Land-tax Income-tax Beer Duty Registration and other Pees Marine Miscellaneous Territorial Revenue 1,400 908 3,203 12,278 Sinking Fund increases 6,468,000 ! 6,386,609 '■ 99,240 60,600 i 57,500 3,100 102,340 17,849 17,849 Total 6,528,600 ! 6,444,109 84,491