DOMINION'S FINANCES.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1919, Page 4

DOMINION'S FINANCES.

AN INTERESTING STATEMENT.

BY FINANCE MINISTER. (By Wire.—Own Correspondent.) Wellingon, Last NightSir James Allen made a statement on Dominion finance in the House to-day. He said that the total amount of money voted in the supplementary estimates was £1,077,000. The expenditure proposed in the Appropriation Bill, including the butter subsidy, was £306,000, making a total of £1,443,000. When presenting the Budget and the ordinary estimates he had stated that the amount remaining available for expenditure on the supplementary estimates was £478,000, He was pleased to be able to say that the revenue for the first seven months of the current financial year had exceeded the revenue for the corresponding months of last year by £1,103,000. It would be safe, therefore, in estimating the revenue for the current year to add at least £l,luu,uoo to the revenue of last year. The revenue in sight on this calculation was £23,455,000. The Budget estimate of revenue had been £22,319,000, so that there was in sight excess revenue to the amount of £536,000. This sum, added to the available surplus shown in the Budget, made a total of £1,014,000, which was available to meet the supplementary estimates, and the provision contained in the Appropriation Bill. The sum proposed to be spent in the main estimates was £22,441,000. He would add to this the sum of £1,077,000 contained in the supplementary estimates, if the new estimate of revenue was correct there would be sufficient revenue to meet all the estimated expenditure and leave a surplus on March 31st next. He had deliberately placed the butter subsidy upon the Appropriation Bill and not upon the estimates, because he believed that it was a fair charge against' the accumulated surpluses. He had omitted therefore to include it in nis estimate of expenditure. A report that had been presented to him by the Treasury indicated .that even if the butter subsidy had been placed upon the estimates the revenue at the end of the year, as far as he could judge, would have exceeded the expenditure, notwithstanding the very heavy charges placed on the estimates.

If lie added to the original estimated expenditure the sums contained in the supplementary estimates and the Appropriation Bill, including the butter tax, the total expenditure became £23.844,000. The revised estimate of expenditure Wks £23,455,000, so that if these figures were actually . realised there would be a deficit at the end of the year of £429,000, but at least half a million of estimated expenditure would not be incurred. The Treasury, said the Minister, was of opinion that, given normal times—and lie hoped for something more than normal prosperity during the next Sve months—the balance at the close of the financial year would be on the right side.