The Oamaru Mail. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1909.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10064, 4 February 1909, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1909.

A small paragraph will suffice to deal with certain statements the periodic contained in an Otago jeremiad. .Daily Times article on the public accounts as they appeared in a recent Ga/.ette. llie increase in the amount of receipts tor tho first nine months of 1908-9, compared with those for the same period of 1907-8, slightly exceeded £IOO,OOO, but it clared'by our contemporary to be £90,000. It is then shewn that tho ordinary expenditure for the first nine months of 1908-9 exceeded that of the corresponding period of 1907-8 by £577,321, but that the expnditure was, after all, only £oo,ooo mole than <he revenue, and that the larger sum was cine to a .Ministerial over-estimate of the expenditure and an under-cstimale of the revenue. If the expenditure had been greater than the estimate and the receipts less there would have been a still louder outcry ill the Opposition camp. That- the expenditure has, however, been so large during nine months of tho current hnanciat \ear is due to the exactions of such papers as the Otago Daily Times and the importunities of the Opposition generally-, who, demand railways everywhere and abuse the Government when they fail to expend more than can be afforded oil their pet lines. The criticism then falls into that old groove of gloomy prophecy of misery, pLciiliarly the Oppositions own, •and the coi.-lusion is as typical: The curtailment o; the appropriations for the year, which ought to be deemed 1 a virtue bv 'the friends of economy, is attributed, to the device of dangling false promises before constituencies in view of the general election. The fact- is that the Government's expenditure was as large as tho Government thought wise, and that the finances have been made as snug as the Opposition's greed would allow them to be, so as to prepare for the awful judgment which, is to be visited upon i ; eir I Zealand: for having fostered Liberal and j progressive Governments during so many years and thus aggravated the Opposition's winter of discontent.