PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 43, 20 February 1930, Page 22

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Your contributor, "Taxpayer," has given, if you wiil allow me to Bay so, a startlingly incoherent statement of the revenue and expenditure over the past ton years. You publish for him a tablo of figures whiph. must, when, attention is directed to it, appear absurd and ridiculous to any reader of common intelligence. Here is the table supplied to you by "Taxpayer":—

Year. Revenue. Expenditure. Surplus. 1920 -J'.. 15,278,7G0 17,534,005 2,2uy,SlG 1021 .. 24,803,067 10,209,350 0,192,231 1922 .. 18,095,201 19,544,910 339,831 192 a ~ 18,275,641 19,320,128 1,315,083 1924 .. 18,448,229 19,000,480 1,812,305 1025 .. 19,205,315 , 19,720,481 1,243,800 1926 .. 20.010,908 21,094,654 1,155,079 1927 .. 20,211,388 22,121,731 587,142 1928 .. 19,000,244 22,459,579 179,075 1929 .. 20,840,241 23,650,350 077,252

"Taxpayer" employs many words in explaining that the figures he quotes are "adjusted" by the Government Statistician by tho exclusion of the "railways" and "Post and Telegraph"-figures of revenue and expenditure. But "Taxpayer" omits to mention what is all important that the "adjusted" figures as givcyi above by "Taxpayer" are "comparable vertically only and not horizontally." True, it wag during the ten years of the Reform Party's administration that all its eight years' surpluses were decimated by 1929 when there was a deficit of £577,252. The operation of the Finance Act, 1029, in no way. affected the figures of the table of revenue and expenditure under review. In order that the average reader of the "Evening Post" may understand and appreciate the position and note the enormous surpluses extracted from tho pockets of the taxpayers by the Reform Government, it is necessary to reproduce the "recorded"—not "adjusted" revenue and expenditure for the past ten years as follows: — ■

Recorded Itecordcd Kecorded Year. Kerenuc. Expenditure. Surplus.

a s. & ' 1920 .. 28,081,340 23,781,524 2,299,810 1921 .. 34,260,961 25,0C8,730 0,192,231 1922 .. 28,127,007 . 28,400,838 *339,8;U 1023 .. 27,579,443 20,263,700 1,315,683 1924 .. 27,960,370 26,148,005 1,812,365 1925 .. 28,643,000 27,399,200 1,243,800 1926 .. 24,725,702 23,570,053 1,155,679 1027 .. 21,943,107 21,355,965 587,142 1928 ..25,123,980 '24,944,805 179,075 1929 •.." 23,599,070 ,24,170,928 *577,252 ♦Deficit. Even allowing for £900,000, approximately, of deficits, it will be seen that the Reform Government had an average yearly surplus of £1,500,000, or £15,----000,000 for ten years. "Taxpayer's" contention should have been that the Reform Government overtaxed the people by that amount. It is liot good government or sound administration to extract more from the taxpayers' pocket than is necessary ior the purposes of administi'ation. It is .the primary duty of Government to leave as much money as possible in the haudrf of the people that such capital may be utilised by the people themselves in the advancement of their own businesses and private enterprises. . There is another view. The Statistician says this: "In any comparison of Consolidated Fund revenue and expenditure over a series of years it is desirable to omit -railways and postal items altogether." The table quoted by "Taxpayer"—the first table above—does this; but as I have pointed out the surpluses lie gives are not the surpluses of such a compilation but the surpluses of the recorded revenue and expenditure as quoted by me in the second table. And, what is more important is that the figures of the "adjusted" table given by "Taxpayer" Tare comparable vertically .only, not" horizontally" to use the own language. Following this line of comparison, the Statistician .observes "there was an increase of revenue of two and a half millions and over six |milliona of an increase in expenditure." That is not criticism, that is fact. The other view is this: In the fir.st five years of the period under review the Government of the day kept the expenditure under revenue by over three millions; but in the last five .years of the Reform Government's administration the expenditure exceeded the, revenue by over nine millions—apart from "capital items _ (loans) commercial and special undertakings, advances, etc." Was it any wonder that electors sought relief from years of mismangement and burdensome taxation? It does not yet appear that the burdens of taxpayers are to be lightened to any great extent. An expenditure that had grown so enormously as to exceed the revenue by over nine millions in five years cannot be lessened suddenly without hardship and distress. So, for some time yet—no matter what Government undertakes tho work —the burilcns created by a previous Administration must be endured. What taxpayers hope for, and what they have a right to expect, is that the United Government will first balance the nation's budget and then lessen expenditure and reduce taxation. Both are essential to the people's well-being and the Dominion's progress.—l am, etc., J. D. SIEVWRIGHT.