The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1916. THE DOMINION'S FINANCES.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1916. THE DOMINION'S FINANCES.

The statement of revenue and expenditure set forth in the Budget presented to the house last week is one that reallirms the solidity of the Dominion's piosperity. Although the items of revenue show an increase in the aggregate of over two millions sterling as compered with the preceding year, it must be remembered that increased taxation and charges played an important part in this result, but apart therefrom a satisfactory improvement was manifested in ordinary revenue owing to increased activities in trade and commerce. Customs showed a rise of about £200,000. stamps and death duties £B0,OIK), post and telegraphs £330,000, land tax £200,000, income tax £SoO,OOO, beer duty £30,000, vaihvavs £350,000, registration £SOOO, national endowment £12,000, other receipts £3OOO, while marine, miscellaneous and territorial each produced less than in the previous year. Turning to the expenditure side of the account it will be noticed that there is a reduction of nearly £I7OO on the civil list, nearly £3OOO Legislplive Department, £BO,OOO Finance Department, £17,000 "üblic Works, £GOC Mines, £BI,OOO Internal Affairs, £07,000 Defence, £15,000 Agriculture and Commerce, and £77,000 on services not provided for. As against these reductions there are increases in the following items: Interest and Sinking Fund £119,000, under special Acts £19,000, subsidies to local authorities £BOOO, old age pensions £14,000, widows' pensions £SOOO. war pensions (new item), £14.000,

I post and telegraph £50,000, railways £73,000, Justice £IO,OOO, Customs, etc., £12,000, Labor £3OOO, Education £121,000, the net increase being £IJ3. 304, chiefly caused by the large additional expenditure on education. It is worthy of note that the Minister, in claiming a saving of £74,674 in the expenditure on annual appropriations gives the credit of this economy largely to the heads of departments in controlling the expenditure. A remarkable omission iinder this 'head is all reference to the action of the Civil Service Commissionere, from whom so much was expected by way of economy. It would seem that they are powerless to fulfil this important part of the duty for which they were appointed. If any evidence is required of the general prosperity in the Dominion it is to be found in the rapid increase of the deposits at the iPost Office Savings Bank, a very large portion of which has been invested in war debentures and other Government securities. The action .of the Minister in establishing a reserve of £3,325,000 in London is greatly to 'be commended, whereby gieat assistance has been rendered to the Imperial Government, and a strong liquid reserve set up to meet possible sudden claims in the future. Amongst the other financial operations last year was the floating of a two million loan for public works at a cost of only onequarter per cent., as against two and a half per cent, if it had been raised in London. The pity of it is that more money was not raised in the same way. They were also several redemptions or conversions of loans, and nearly two millions of the Dominion Treasury Bills were paid off—a very commendable stroke of business. The full benefit of the increased charges on the railways and in the postal and telegraph department should be apparent this- year, 'but it is distinctly unsatisfactory that with such a buoyant revenue and so large an amount of idle capital that public works expenditure is down to zero instead of keeping pace with the requirements of the country. It is owing to the prosperity the country is now enjoying that there has been so generous an outpouring of contributions to patriotic funds. For purposes outside New Zealand the Government received £340,035, and it is estimated that the funds now in the hands of the various patriotic committees amount to a million and a quarter sterling, while £77,000 has been contributed }o the poor of Belgium, £3OOO for the poor of the United Kingdom, over £BOOO for Red Cross purposes, and £51,770 for liospital requisites and comforts for the troops. Large as are these figures, and creditable as they are to the humane sympathies of the people *bi New Zealand, they by. no means represent the total in money and kind that has been oi could be given. It is only to be expected that when the, tax on war profits is levied there will be a falling off in voluntary effort, b\U there are a fairly large number who will not pay the special tax and do not contribute voluntarily their fair share of the greatly needed financial help, and if they could be reached it would be a matter 1 o f considerable satisfaction.