A DIPPERENCE OF OPINION.

Southland Times, Issue 635, 22 February 1867, Page 3

A DIPPERENCE OF OPINION.

The criticism of the Melbourne journals on the revenue returns affords an admirable commentary on the epigram, j " there is nothing more fallacious than j figures." We have had ol late some re- ] markable illustrations of the elastic character of political arithmetic in Victoria, how a simple sum is subtraction and addition may be made to yield diametrically opposite results, to the complete satisfaction of the ingenious manipulators, and how as warm a controversy may be raised about the multiple of two in a Treasurer's budgot as about the disputed number of the Beast in the Apocalypse. > The principal performers in this line have already had a formal introduction to the readers of the " Mail," but never have they carried their art to a higher pitch of excellence, than in the handling of the present opportunity for display. To say that the effect of such legerdemain as we present a sample of, is to abate our confindence in the logic of facts, only faintly represents the consternation with which we witness these repeated assaults upon the natural reverence of the human mind for the multiplication table : Age. — An analysis of the constituent items of the national revenue for 1866 is in the main highly reasuring. Argus.— This is an exercise from which we hare not derived much comfort. Age. — Upon examination, the encouraging fact transpires that, generally speaking our gains are of the most desirable kind, while our losses are under heads of revenue where direction really indicates progress in other preferable directions. Argus.— H has pot been usual hitherto a community on the fact

that its public revenue has suffered . decline. , Age -r- The f-hief decline last year as against that preceeding is under the hea. of Customs. Argus. — Nor has it occurred to politi--1 cians in other countries to felicitate themselves, when a deficiency of. revenue has been experienced, that it has arisen in the department of customs. On the contrary. Age. — The falling off in the Customs on imported spirits cannot be regarded morally as a great misfortune. It implies that the people are gaming in sobriety what the State loses in the spirits revenue. Argus. — A falling-of in the Customs and Excise revenue has always been regarded as a proof that the working classes have not been fully employed, that their social circumstances have not improved, and that the condition of the trade of the country is not in a satisfactory state. Age. — If the lesser revenue of tea and sugar be a subject of regret in one sense, it is in another a reasonable ground for congratulation that so important a remission of taxation should be of a character which reaches the whole mass of the people — not a class concession, but one national in its effect. Argus. — The large deficit on tea, on sugar, and on opium, shows that those articles have not entered much more largely into consumption, to increase the comfort of the people Age— The plain deduction is that the tariff is doing its proposed work in fostering that local production which diminishes requirement for the import of the produce of foreign labor. Argus. — These figures db not indicate that increased social comfort, that growth of manufacturing industry, and that enhanced value of labor, which the friends of a protective tariff expected from its operation. Age. — Without straining a single point, and keeping strictly within the limits of actual figures, we have demonstrated the favorable significance of the just published revenue returns. Argus. — The. tables of revenue offer strong proof that the model we have lately followed in shaping the tariff of the colony is not of the. best kind. — "M. A. Mail," Ilth _fa__., 1867. . ----- . A i