THE NATIONAL FINANCES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1425, 27 April 1912, Page 4

THE NATIONAL FINANCES.

The quarterly financial speeches of the ex-Prime Minister were so very one-sided and misleading that the Hon. T. Mackenzie appears to deserve some credit for his presentation of tho position. At the same time his statement in Auckland upon the national finances for tho financial year just ended is in one most important respect very far from candid. and is very liable to mislead. As usual, stress is kid upon tlic revenue sido of the account, and the expenditure side is dismissed with the bare mention of the total. The year opened with a balance in hand of £586,483, and the total revenue amounted to £11,061,100. The expenditure amounted to £10,340,549 leaving a gross balance, of £1,307,094 on the credit side. Of this amount £500,000 was transferred to the Publie Works Fund, and the year closed with a final balance of £807,094. A great increase of revenue is, ofcourse, not necessarily a good thing: good administrators would see in a series of substantial credit balances an excellent reason for either reducing taxation or using the Surplus to reduce the public debt. Otiv "Liberal" politicians, however, regard these credit balances as excuses for piling up (lie expenditure. Ml:. Macki'A'Zli; showed that iltc increase in revenue over the figures for 1910-11 was £720,017, but he was extremely careful not to make anv comparison in rwpcr.t of expenditure! £et aio facta] gaio k,

short and eloquent condensation of the position: In--IDIO-U. 1911-12. crease. •£ S: £ Revenue ... 10,2117.273 H,o(il,lGo 763,887 Ivxpenditure !•,:!»,ltili 10,:j|0,5t!) 1)97,113 The increase in the revenue is large, but it is vastly outweighed by tho enormous. increase in the disbursements, which Jlit. Mackenzie carefully failed to touch upon. Excepting as a member of the Ward Cabinet, of course, Mu. Mackenzie is not responsible for this amazing rise in the national outlay, which swallows up all the increased revenue and over i' 200,000 to boot. But he is responsible now in his own person for any departure from openness and candour in his addresses to the nation on the financial situation. He should not only have mentioned the alarming increase in expenditure, but he should also have said a little upon the bad drift of "Liberal" finance. Why did he not tell the people that during the past five years, while tho revenue has increased by £1,793,350 the expenditure has increased by over tiro and a half mi/ltonsl Five years ago the expenditure was 83.4 per cent, of the revenuein 1911-12 it was 93.4 per cent. This is clear enough proof .that ''Liberalism" is simply wasting tho millions of growing revenue that wise administration would either return to the people in reduced taxation or else carefully conserve for debt-reduction purposes. Mu. Mackenzie sees fit, however, to use the figures for the year as the text of a very absurd address designed merely to throw dust in tho public's eyes. "When he says that he "believes that there is no more God-gifted country than New Zealand," it is, we presume, something very like profanity to insist upon even a mild qualification. But the ecstacy of tho Prime Minister notwithstanding, and notwithstanding also his queer choice of language, we make bold to say that there could hardly be any good country worse administered than New Zealand is shown to be by the latest financial statistics. We do not desire to complicate the argument by referring here to the reci'tulesence the excess of imports 91' to the difficult money market. It is chiefly important, and it is enough, to point out that "Liberalism is still bent on extracting every possible penny in the way of revenue, in order the more easily to throw away million after million in the way of expenditure. This must be very disappointing to those who, with tho accession of a new Ministry to office, looked for a return to sound and sober financial methods.