FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 149, 27 May 1886, Page 2

FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

The following are the salient features of Sir Julius Vogel's Financial Statement, delivered in the House last Tuesday evening : — REVENUE & EXPENDITURE OF 1885-86. The last financial year commenced ' with a surplus of £19,891, and it ' closed with a surplus of £37,859. It ' is arrived at simply : The balance of cash and of advances in the hands of ' officers at the end. of the Tear amounted ; to £112,859, and there were £75,000 of Deficiency Billg outstanding. Deducting the one from the other, you have the surplus I have mentioned. The estimated revenue has proved less than was anticipated by £19.54, and the expenditure was less by £39,875. ■ Land Ftoto. The land fund accotix&had a balance at the commencement of the year -of £31,931, and at the end of the year there was a deficit of jf20,384. .This eminently unsatisfactorily reSutt is but the consummation of a series of diminished receipts, not compensated sufficiently by reduced expenditure. Pubmo Works Fuot>, 1885-86. There have not been any new loans negotiated since the House Was isft in session, but an instalment of the third million of the Three Million Loan end i the proceeds of the Million and a Half Loan have passed to the credit oi the fund since the end of the i financial yearof 1884-85, including the balance at the end of that period. The total receipts of the fund amounted to £2,844,166, The expenditure ys&pt the fund during the year was ! £1,287,086. There was a bahnce to credit at the end of March last of £768,780. The GoT«r#m#»t thin£ #ie proceeds of future loans andthejtj^kn for the North Island Trunk ra%ra should be tied down for the purpose! for which tfiey arid borrowed, and provision to give effect to this restriction will be proposed to the Assembly. Thk Public Debt. The amount of the public debt on the 31st March was, as nearly an can be estimated, without an exact analysis «f the late conversions, £34,965,222. The amount of the accrued suflaifgitund was £3,276,873, and the net debt was therefore £31,688,349. , Finance of Local Bodies. It is essentially necessary that I should explain to the Committecthe apews of th«< Government on the finance of local bodies. Shortly their proposal is that on the ratepayers shall depend fh» reßponsiworks, ajjd t^a]t ratepayers approve, money should «e provided to the? local bodies on very liberal terms. These teams are a payment of 5 per cent, -pit] annum for twent^>isix; yelaiv, soured Oil I special rates, the colony to be responsible for the payment of the principal sunvand | to meet it by setting aside yearly a sinkfund of 2 por cent, to redeem the debentures >.t maturity. Estimated Expenditure 1886-^7. = The estimated expenditure diiringiihe 4 pre ««nt financial year amount! to f4,'>70,20&, which is £49,155 in excess of the estimates and rotes, and £89*030- ifc.. excess of the expenditure of last year-. The increase is fully accounted for by three item*, viz., on education £20,978 is estimated to be more than last your, on subsidies to the local bodies £39,368 arid on working railways £67,225. FUTURE REVENUE. A reduction of the rate of property tax and a small increase of the ustoms duties would benefit every class and every interest in the colony, for the community is closely kutt together, and the illogical reduction of one kind of taxation andincrease of another roust be felt by every, one. I cannot say thai additional t»3|a- , tion is necessary this yeaiyjor it is not on the oontrary, I can dp. with less, and I .propose to take off l-16th of a penny of the property tax, making it 13-14>t]j this | year instead of fths. This is equal to a reduction of over £24,000, or over 7 per ! cent, of the estimated yield of the tax. i I should have liked to take off more, andi lam convinced $that in every way the colony would benefit if the House were to ■ sanction the reduction of the property tax to |ths, and substitute moderate increases of duty on articles (other than sugar and tea and such like necessaries of life) that can well bear the taxation, i ESTIMATED RESULTS AS BKTWKBN EXPENDITURE AND RKVENUB. The anticipated expenditure is £4,070,I 208, and the estimated revenue £4,074,---92<>. To the latter has to be added the surplus of £37,859 at the commencement oftheydftr. Together these amount to j £'4,112,779, and leave a surplus oti £42,571, which will be reducible by any supplementary estimates that may be appropriated.

LOANS AND PUBLIC WORKS. It is natural in connection with these subjects that I should congratulate the Committee on there being erery reason to expect that the great work of the construction of the East and West Coast and Nelson Railway (now known as the New Zealand Midland) will be carried out by a powerful company. The Government are anxious, as they stated from the first moment they came into office, to seethe North Island trunk line completed as rapidly as possible. Their find that this, with any reasonable regard to economical construction, cannot be attained sooner than in four years. They will spare no exertion to get the railway finished during the year 1890. I now read to th'e Committee a list oi the railways to which | it is proposed to devote the million and a ' half lean. Extension north of Auckland, £70,000 ; for doubling line out of Auckland southward, £33,000 ; Thames Te Aroha, £80,000 ; Auckland - Kotorua, £120,000; Napier-Palmerston, £100,000; Mauriceville-Woodville, £125,000; Blen-heim-Awatere, £50,000; Hokitika-Grey-mouth, £150,000; Livingstone branch;, 1 £15,000; Catlins' Eiver,' £.50,000; Sea- \ ward Bush Extension, £20,000; Edendale towards Fortesque, £40,000; Mossburn, £5,000 ; Eiverdal© - Switzers, £40,000; Otago Central, £200,000 ; Mount Somers- Alfred Forest, £14,000 ; Blenheim -Tophouse, £100,000; West-port-Inangahua, £7,500 ; open lines, £200,000; raising loan and cowngenoies, £63,000— total, £1,500,000. *'

Mr Ff inmian will preach the Gospel in the hall, Warwick street, on Sunday next. Mr Wilfred Jackson, who wan for some time secretary of the Feilding Jockey Club, has been a yisitor here for the past few days. A nife'ins of persons interested in the Kim'>erlcy goldh'elds is convene-! by advert.sement in another column for Monday evening next, at Bellve's hotel, at 630 p.m.