DOMINION FINANCE

Otago Witness, Issue 4029, 2 June 1931, Page 26

DOMINION FINANCE

PAST YEAR’S OPERATIONS NET DEFICIT OF £1,639,000. WELLINGTON, May 30. The public accounts for the last financiel year were published in a Supplementary Gazette to-day. Commenting on the final figures, the Prime Minister (Mr G. W. Forbes) said it would be seen that the revenue for the year amounted to £23,068,931, or approximately £2,050,000 less than was estimated in last year’s Budget. The principal items concerned in the shortage were:—Customs, £825,000; railway interest, £695.000; stamp and death duties, £390,000. The expenditure chargeable to the year’s revenue amounted to £24,708,042, made up as follows:—Permanent appropriations, £17,035,863; departmental votes, £7,672,178 — total, £24,708,042. This approximately was £290,000 less than the Budget Estimates, and in view of the fact that these Estimates were most carefully pruned when the Budget was being prepared, this result was satisfactory and indicated the efforts made by the Government to keep the expenditure down to a minimum. “The net result for the year is a deficit of £1,639,000. The transactions for the year will be fully analysed in the Budget which will be presented to Parliament during the coming session, but it will be seen from the figures that the deficit arises from the heavy decline in revenue, which for the most part occurred during the last quarter of the year, w’hen. it was too late to recast the Budget or take any adequate steps to meet the position. The basic cause is, of course, the world-wide fall in prices,” concluded Mr Forbes.