NEW ZEALAND FINANCES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9435, 4 May 1909, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND FINANCES.

Under the heading “Maoriland’s Ordinary Way” the Bulletin refers at length to the financial position of this Colony. The heading was suggested by the Premier’s statement that the cost of the Dreadnought will be provided for in “the ordinary way.” From its article we make the following extracts, which may be read in connection with Sir Joseph Ward’s Invercargill speech : “It is just as well to see what is Maoriland’s ordinary way. For the year ended March ” 31st, 1908, its revenue was £9,055,946, of which £289,603 was “Territorial;” that Is to say, it consisted more or less of the sale of assets in the shape of land, and was, therefore, not revenue at all. Maoriland’s “ordinary way” haa been to sell every scrap of land that it could make available, so that the present generation should pay lees taxes, and every succeeding generation, on account of the shrinkage of State land rents, should pay more. There is very little public estate left that isn’t either a crag or a precipice or a babble; in fact, there has been so little that for many years past Maoriland has been bor-‘ rowing money to bay oack some of the land which it sold' years ago. When it sold the land it used the proceeds as revenue; but when it buys the|laud back it dosen’t pay for it out of revenue—id borrows the money to pay the bill with. It is a simpie;;process by which Maoriland eats its "cake and has it too; at least, it eats its cake, and then buys another one for much more, aud decides that its own youngster shall pay the pastrycook when the young-

ster comes of age While the revenue, and alleged revenue, amounted to £9,316,588 —or £9,324,629, including some refunded overpayments of the previous year—the total expenditure was £11,523,616. Nevertheless Ward claimed a surplus of £850,024, achieved in the “ordinary way.” That is to say, while omitting a few receipts, he also omitted to include a mere trifle of £3,318,650 with the expenditure.” Onr contemporary quotes figures to show that the total revenue was £9,324,629, and the expenditure £11,532,615, leaving a deficit of £2,207,986. It points out that out of the borrowed money nearly £4OO, OOP was spent on things which will give no return, the principal item being public buildings, £219,260. It farther calls attention to the fact that roads are made to open up State lands, and the bill is passed on to the youngster. But the opened-np lands are sold, and the proceeds, instead of also being passed on to the youngster or used to pay the cost of the roads, are collared as revenue. Even the rates which the Government pays on native lands are charged up to the youngster—all in th “ordinary way.” And because this has become Maqriland’s “ordinary way”—because borrows money to pay for ;things that ought to be paid for out of revenue —the interest bill has been rushing upwards at an alarming pace, while the revenue has been only mounting gradually. If the loans were put into works which paid interest, then, clearly, the public wouldn’t have to. dip its hand into its pocket and make up any difference out of taxation. But since the works won’t earn interest, the burden of taxation per head grows heavier and heavier :

Only 33 per cent, of the debt is for railways, and even the railways return only £3 6s percent., while on the average the debt costs the Dominion £3 14s 7d per cent. The other 68 per cent of the debt of upwards of £67,000,000 is represented by a vast accumulation of odds and ends; and the catalogue of odds and ends [has spread out enormously during the past few years. It is very largely because of that accumulation of odds and ends, costing interest but producing none, that the head of a family of five persons now has to pay in actual taxation £25 Is 8d per annum, where only 10 years ago he paid no more than £lB 6s 3d; and the upward rush has increased in a peculiarly appalling manner during the past two years. Yet scarcely a year has passed without the Maoriiand Treasury playing a'ooufldence trick upon the public and declaring a huge, gaudy surplus. If there had been a real surplus—if, over and above ordinary expenditure, there had been receipts available for Investment in revenueproducing undertakings ■—clearly there would have been a gradual reduction of taxes. These investments would have been earning money and costing nothing for interest, and ' taxes woould have come off to correspond. The fact that, so far from reducing taxes, Maoriiand has had to increase them by 37 per cent, in 10 years, ought in itself to be enough to suggest .that these alleged surpluses have been a fraud and a sham. If they bad been real surpluses Maoriiand might, and no doubt would, have spent them in paying off old, burdensome, unproductive debt. The old Maori war debt of £2,360,000 is still, however, as good as new. It is ‘44 years or so since the Maori war, but, in spite of the alleged surpluses, the debt remains as fresh as ever it was, and awaits i payments by posterity —■ the same iposterity which will have to battle with Ward’s Dreadnought IO U, if, as Ward promises, the matter is fixed up “in the ordinary way.” For, in matters of finance, Maoriiand has only one “ordinary way,” and it leads to the pawnshop. What lies beyond the pawnshop isn’t yet clear. Still, one can form some idea. In 10 years the harden of taxation 'has increased from £8 13s 3d to £5 0s 4d per head per annum, and it would have increased much more if many publicjservioes hadn’t in the last few years been paid .‘tor out of more loans. It is certain that breaking point lies somewhere, and if Maoriiand keeps on the pawnshop track long enough it will no doubt find out exactly where it is.” [What the Sydney Bulletin says of the financial methods as shown by the 1908 figures will apply with even greater force to those of 1909. ]

1899 £3 13 8 1 1904 £4 8 4 1900 3 16 10 1 1905 4 8 2 1901 3 19 6) 1906 4 ■7 7 1903 3 19 8 1 1007 4 14 7 1903 4 1 81 1908 5 0 4