Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 1901. THE FINANCIAL POSITION.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 12 August 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 1901. THE FINANCIAL POSITION.

The information forwarded by our Parliamentary reporter and our comments thereon in regard to the forthcoming Financial Statement has 1 cally caused a feeling of uneasiness. In other centres of population a like uneasiness has been caused by similar information and comment. An effort is now being made to allay that curiosity, if not alarm, for which we are informed their exists no cause. Mr J. E. Arnold the senior member in the House of Representatives for Dunedin to-day wires us as follows : —“ Your Parliamentary correspondent who went on to Dunedin after paying his last tribute in respect to the memory of Vl'Kenzie, finds that in Dunedin there is still a feeling of uneasiness owing to the Premier’s remarks to a West Coast deputation last week. The anxiety felt in commercial circles, our representatives consider quite uncalled for, and anticipate that when the budget is disclosed on Friday next this will proveto be the case, the necessity of crying a halt in regard to finance was not unnatural after the past years abnormal expenditure. The Premier had doubtless found cause for alarm in the falling revenue for June, but this is explainable by the disorganisation in trade owing to the Ducal visit. The customs returns for July on the other hand will compare favorably with the previous period, while the gold output for the first six months of the present year shows a record compared with any like period in the previous history of the colony. There seems good grounds therefore for the assumption that the grave alarm created by Seddon’s remarks is quite uncalled for, and that the delivery of the Financial Statement will tend to restore confidence. The Treasurers gloomy forebodings have a peculiar interest following so shortly after the optimistic view expressed by his colleague, Sir Joseph Ward on the occasion of his banquet on the previous Monday, and this view is largely shared in by the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand in his address to the shareholders on Friday.” Possibly—and we sincerely hope—Mr Arnold is correct, but it must not be Lrgotten that the departmental expenditure instead of decreasing has steadily increased year by year—increased at a higher ratio than the revenue—and prosperous though the colony is, this multiplication of Government Departments, with many paid offices cannot go on much longer without seriously imperilling the solvency of the tState, The Civil Service to-day is one sufficient for a colony having ten million inhabitants. It has outgrown its requirements, yet fresh departments with numerous branches are being continually grafted on to the parent tree, until there is a danger from exhaustion. It is this phase of the question that we have most to fear fropn. Our country is prosperous, our revenue elastic, but it is possible even to play riot under such a condition of affairs.