FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 24 September 1919, Page 3

FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

INTERESTING POINTS. The Financial Statement was delivered in the House last night. Points from the-Budget are as follow: Total revenue for the year amounted to £22,352,372, an increase of £2,146,150 over previous year. I The expenditure showed an increase of £3,553,311 over that of 1917-18, or £1,j.r!),47S below amount appropriated, indicating departmental prudence and economy. The main items of increased expenditure were on account of interest, and sinking fund on war loans, war' and other pensions, and charges arising out of the recent epidemic, and Hie expenses of the trading departments, which were largely increased owing to the advance in the cost of materials and in wages. .The surplus for the year amounted to £3,675,773, arrived at as follows: Revenue £22,352,372, expenditure £18,673,599, add surplus at the end of the financial year 1917-18 £11,560,788; total accumulated surplus £15,239,561. Tho amount derived from Customs was £3,530,051, an amount only once exceeded—hi 1916-17, when £3,549,675 was, collected. Imports for last year totalled £20,437,284, and exports £32,263,792, buth records. ' £17,265,921 worth of goods were imported from Britain and £4,980,748 from America, an increase in the latter ease of nearly three millions since 1914. The sum collected from land tax totalled £1,512,693 and from income tax £6,219,336. Both shoiv an increase of £72rt,7(in for the year. The total cost of tho epidemic will be about £22(1,000. About £90,000 per year will lie required to provide for epidemic widows and widowers and children. The Post OlHce Savings Hank business for the year was unusually large. the deposits totalling £18,101,105. The withdrawals totalled £11,938.842, leaving an excess of deposits over withdrawals for the year of £3,162,263. This is a half-million more than the excess for the . previous year. The revenue collected by the Stamp Duties Department during the year amounted to £2,124,773, or £232,759 in excess of the collections for the previous financial year. At the end of tho iinancial year 1918-19 tho war expenditure of the Dominion, including imprest advances outstanding, had reached the sum of £62,636,720; whilst towards meeting commitments connected with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, including charges for the maintenance of troops in the field, equipment, supplies, pay, allowances, there was a cash balance and temporary investments amounting to £6,084,469. These sums do not include provision for interest and sinking fund charges on war loans raised, nor for war pensions, which are. a charge upon tho ordinary revenue of the Dominion. Special attention is paid to tho educational and vocational training of returned soldiers by the Defence Department. Workshops have been built and equipped at nineteen hospitals and sanatoria. The funds for necessary buildings and a considerable portion of the equipment have been provided by the New Zealand Red Cross and other patriotic societies. There are sixtyeight instructors now engaged by the Department and the subjects taught number fifty-nine. The decrease in coal between 1914 and 191 S was as follows:—Local outX>ut 241,304 tons,-importations 262.73 S tons; total 504,102 tons. The local decrease last year was 34,109 tons. The Government has decided to ask Parliament to enable specific loans to be raised, for education lands and buildings only, to the amount of half a million during the present year, and three-quarters of a million during each of the four following years. It is proposed to provide £300,000 for developing hydro-electricity this year. ■ It is r) r oP o:s ed to provide for the : £12,500,000 required for discharged sol- ! diers' settlement out of the accumulated surplus of £15,000,000. No reduction can at.present be made in the heavy burden of taxation. A vigorous immigration policy is foreshadowed. Building experts arc to be appointed to assist the Government and local bodies with the housing problem, the cost of which will be liberally subsidised.