THE REVENUE PROSPECTS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1584, 18 March 1879, Page 3

THE REVENUE PROSPECTS.

[Special Wire.] Wellington, March 17. In an apparently semi-official article the “ Chronicle” to-night reviews the condition and immediate financial prospects of the colony. It says the Treasurer’s estimate for the year was .£1,320,000, but the reduction of tea and sugar duties, and abolition of timber, grain, and other duties, reduced the estimate to £1,253,500. In a comprehensive table of the half-year’s accounts, the amount received into the Treasury up to the end of December was £664,209, If wo add to this for a week’s receipts not paid into the Treasury, we have a total of £689,209, or an excess over the estimate for the half-year, made according to the original duties, of £29,209. “ But,” it adds, “ we should not be surprised to find a slight falling off in the returns of the March quarter. Although the quarter will be satisfactory, the June quarter will probably tell a different tale. The pressure put by Banks on the mercantile community will cause the latter to contract their operations, and there has been time to countermand orders at home so as to affect imports for the last quarter of the financial year. The fall in the price of wool will again diminish credit. Yet, considering the prosperity of the earlier part of the year, we do not expect a falling off which will reduce the Customs Revenue below the estimate. On the contrary, there will probably be a surplus, for the great revenue items, spirits, tobacco, tea, sugar, are seldom materially prejudiced by temporary depression. The land tax, for which there has been an estimate of £50,000, to be received in present financial year, is not likely to answer this expectation. The loss of the amount to the year’s revenue will more than absorb any surplus which may be anticipated from Customs. The estimate was £IOO,OOO a year, and the cost of collection (including valuation) was stated at £IO,OOO. We think it will be found that both estimates will be exceeded. The tax may reach say £120,000, and the collecting about £IB,OOO. The table representing the acconnts of the halfyear shows the great item of land revenue in a more prosperous condition than, we are afraid, the present or ensning quarter is likely to maintain. The total estimate was large, reaching the extraordinary sum of £1,229,677. The amount received for the half-year was £711,676. The estimate was made up by including therein £400,000 from the sale of Waimate plains, and if this could be hoped for, the result would differ from what is probable. The utmost that can now be anticipated from the plains within the year is about £120,000. In Canterbury a quantity of reserves have been released, and will be in the market before June. Land revenue, in truth, is the weakness of the financial system. It is safe to assert that this class of revenue will never again reach even the amount received in the present year. The railways afford a prospect so brilliant that they go a long way to compensate for the deficits in other departments. The estimate was £710,000, and the receipts for the half-year reached £309 000. Since then, the Dunedin-Invercargill line has been opened, and a marked increase of railway traffic has taken place all over the colony. It ia not too mack to expect from this

branch of revenue a tetal of .£BOO,OOO or .£900,000 in excess of the estimate. Large estates can easily bear penny on the land tax, to make np for the falling off in land revenue. There-is enough wealth untaxed to bridge over that chasm, which is occasioned partly by the exhaustion of the public estate and partly by the necessity of promoting settlement by means of deferred payments. Given time, and the railways alone would carry the colony safely over all financial difficulties.