PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 March 1930, Page 2

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

WHAT HAPPENED IN 1921 NEEDED NOW. (Taxpayers’ Federation). With a session of Parliament approaching and the close of the financial year at hand it may not be amiss to marshal afresh the figures which record the growth of expenditure in the public departments since the beginning of the Great War. These figures may not exactly agree with the records of the Treasury, and: those dealing with the Railway Department and the Post and Telegraph Department, as the Government Statisician has explained, being affected by changes in methods of accounting, are only approximately correct. 1 lie figures refer to expenditure from revenue only, no account being taken of loan monies belonging to any department, and show the following comparisons

To a very large extent the cost of the war is responsible for the increased expenditure per head of population, hut that it is not responsible for the whole of it is shown by the following figures, permanent expenditure being attached to war and annual expenditure toother purposes.

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In November, 1921, a very representative deputation waited upon the "Right Hon, W, M, Masse,t, then Prime Minister, with an urgent appeal to the effect that he would take steps to substantially reduce the annudl expenditure, which at that time, in the opinion of the deputation, had reached alarming dimensions. Mr Massey, impressed by the deputation’s representations, promptly set about the task imposed upon him, and as a result in 1923 taxation was reduced by £1,964,970, in 1924 by'£1,980,725 and in 1925 by £829,530, a total reduction of no less than £4,775,225. Then Mr Massey passed away. What has happened since is shown by the figures already quoted. The principal increases in departmental expenditure for the years 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929 were as follows: Legislative Department, £121,000; Prime Minister’s Department, £28,000; Stamp Duty Department, £69,000; Native Department, £9,000; Cook Island Department, £67,000; Prisons Department, £29,000; Police Department, £83,000; Pensions Department, £3l<j,ooo; Internal Affairs Department, £264,000; Mental Hospital Department, £148,000; Public Health Department., £84,000; Defence ‘ and Naval Department, £1,202,000; Labour Department, £40,000; Lands and Survey Department, £40,000; Agriculture Department, £410,000; Tourist Department, £40,000; Education Department, £841,000; Total £3,588,000. Of course everyone knows that during the period under review there have'been exceptional demands upon the Government for assistance to soldier settlers, for the relief of unemployed, for the provision of endless social services, for new schools, fot larger hospitals, for agricultural colleges, for increased pensions, for higher salaries in the Civil Service, and evcjn for increased honorariums for members of both Houses of Parliament. No doubt it is difficult to resist these demands, some of them being well grounded and all of them presented with more or less plausibility: hut again the public expenditure is mounting up apace, and it behoves every member of Parliament, irrespective of party leanings, to he an “Independent,” as Mr Massey was in the last three years of his administration, in seeing that the .taxpayers, which means every member of the community, are not unnecessarily burdened.

Expendi. per Mean popuhead of Year Expend!.. latioin. population. 1914 £11,825,864 1,125,628 10 10 1 1917 14,058,770 1,149,225 12 4 7 1921 28,128,730 1,252,206 12 9 3 1926 30,038,511 1,392,073 21 11 7 1928 31.630,027 1,443,323 21 17 7 19.20 33,520,047 1,468.328 (estimated) 2216- 7