THE FINANCES OF VICTORIA.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1744, 22 September 1879, Page 3

THE FINANCES OF VICTORIA.

The "Pall Mall Gazette" remarks that the telegrams from Melbourne bear out tho unpleasant predictions of deficit with which Mr Graham Berry was greeted on his landing in Victoria after his unsuccessful visit to England. It is now clear that, owing to whatever cause, democratic finance in Viotoria is not very successful. There is neither economy in expenditure nor resource in devising meanß of taxation ; and this will in the end tell more against Mr Berry's party than all the hubbub which they have been the means of raising. The proposals for increasing the Customs duties, therefore, though they can scarcely fail to tell prejudicially against our export trade for the time, may be welcomed as bringing nearer the collapse of the protectionist system, which iB, sooner or later, inevitable. Still, it is certainly a serious matter for a colony like Victoria, which but the other day was > the most -flourishing dependency of the empire, to have fallen into the hands of a knot of political adventurers, who run counter to all the received notions of constitutional government and beneficial taxation merely to gain their own ends. This year, too, Viotoria will have to import a good deal of wheat in consequence of the bad season ; and, altogether, what is needed for the advantage of the whole community is political quiet, retrenchment, and reduced taxation. Not one of these, so far as we can judge at present, are the Victorians likely to obtain.