DOMINION FINANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1918, Page 2

DOMINION FINANCE.

—.. | STATEMENT BY ACTING-MINISTER OfIfRKANCE. Hon. Mr Myera has issued a statement relating to the finances af the first five months of the current financial year. Figures for a fragmentary period are not usually to bo taken as a guide to the trend of financial matters, for they must necessarily be qualified by fluctuations in both receipts and expenditure, which cannot- be set out in official returns, but which very often counteract one another by tho end «>f the year.f The results of the five months' operations is that the receipts were greater than in tho corresponding period of last year by £7165,961, while the expenditure increased (by over that of the same period iast year. The Minister's comment shows that he regards the figures as establishing the fact that the expenditure is unmistakably increasing faster than the revenue, owing to additional charges for interest and sinking fund and pensions. But he adds that the revenue would have been greater had there not been a lack of shipping facilities.

The Public Works Fund appears to be at a rather low ebb. The receipts since the beginning of the year, including a balance of £295,540, were £657,366; of this, £345,096 has been expended, and the balance in hand is £311,370.