FINANCIAL REPORT OF THE PROVINCIAL TREASURER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 67, 22 May 1869, Page 5

FINANCIAL REPORT OF THE PROVINCIAL TREASURER.

.FoiiTrfß Yb^r EidfritoMAkcii 31, 18*69.

The Treasurer's report of Revenue,, , Expenditure,. : and Liabilities, ! forAthe; financial .year just x ; closed, .will be scanned with attention by all interested in the welfare of the Province. -A^carjeful investigation will fincLnianyj instances' of extravagan.ee, which demand the immediate use of the pruning knife, and afety instances of penuriousness, where more liberal, treatment might have been expected. The balap.ee sheet of Income and Expenditure ia as follows : — ■Civ . . . ' & s.' d. By balance', Mar. 31, 1863 17,477 12 6 Receipts for the year ... 276,922 9 5 Transfer from Suspense , Account, 1868 ... 2,379 15 10 Repayjnent of Debentures •- charged to Account ... 13,100 0 0 Deficit 24,769 .7 8 £334,649 5 5 Dr. £ s. d. Expenditure ... ... 334,649 5 5 The Revenue was obtained as follows:- 1 — Customs ... ; ..". ... £'48,086 15 3 Gold Export Duty ... 12,062 3 1 Sheep and Cattle Assessment : ./. ... ' ..'. -53,32115 3 Goldfields Eevenue ... 9,485 34 4 Sale of Crown Lands ... 108,907 6 4 • Habonr, Jetty^and Tonnage Dues ... ... 8,796 1 8 Dog and Goat Taxes .„' ;2,173 17 4 Licenses 12,891 2 0 Rents . 170 2it Immigration, Hospital, ' and Repayments ... 2,564 14 2 Education 1,262 3 10 Tolls ... 10,548 12 5 Thcbalance being made up by — Prison labour £362 0 0 -Telegraphic Messages ... 808 0 0 Sale of ' Government Buildings and Laud. 4,438 0 0 And .Sundries. It will thus be seen, that two-fifths of what is called Revenue, is derived from the sale of Crown Lands, or by alienation of the capital of the Province. Against this, hoAvever, must be set £11-1,300 expended on roads,

bridges, harbourß, jetties, buildings, ; and other works of permanent value, so that, if these Avorks have been judiciously undertaken, the whole amounts to a transfer of capital from one kind of investment to another. 'If the works are likely to be of permanent value, the difference between the capital realised and the capital expended should not have been included -in the; deficit — although, from the manner in

which the two accounts are jumbled •together, it is evident the Treasurer Avas not able to detect the radical difference between money derived from the sale of Crown Lands and the usual Revenue of the Country. A separate and distinct capital account is- indeed a desideratum, and would greatly tend ■to clear- away the misty ideas many people haA r e as to questions of finance. "We have italicised an item of £13,100 in the credit account, because we believe' it requires explanation. Repayment of debentures was surely, (expenditure, and if debentures were accepted as payment for Grown Lands, &c, they would surely be included in the returns of revenue. The matter is made .more complex by the fact that in the year's transactions on the loan liabilities, we find the Province debited with this amount, and credited with d 52,900 expended in the repayment of 1856 debentures, and £6,500 added to the Sinking Fund, the debt being inCreased by. £.3,700, the difference be""tween those sums. No doubt the matter is susceptible of an easy explanation ; but were the account kept in a less absurdly intricate manner, no perplexities of this kind would . arise. At present, the matter stands thus : — From the balance sheet it appears that the i debt has, during the year and exclusive of the; 1856 loan, increased from £60-1,745 to £608,445, the increase being caused by the " repayment of debentures." While on the subject of the debt,: it may not be out of place to remark that the time appears favourable for consolidating it, and reducing .the annual charge. Passing; on, we find that the total result for the year is a nominal deficit of £24,300, and jis #3,700 has been added to the provincial debt, a gross deficit of £28,500. 'If 'from this we deduct the £6,000 in, excess of realised caj)i-, 'tal invested in works of permanent value, we fan} -an actual' difference! between expenditure chargeable to, revenue (properly so called) of over £22,000 — a most grave and lamentable state 4of afiairs. • ' "" ' .' , It is our intention briefly to.review, under the varrous' : hea ! ds, the expenditure of the year, endeavouring to. point dut'as well as our limited 'space will permit the departments where an ex : travagant outlays Kas-b'een caused, ; l."_Tke and Ms Secretary cost £1,383, but considering the small expenses consequent on his office, a 3 re3uctio'ii of the Superinten-I "dentfs salary S^iSSOp.mightibe effected without any injustice to that omciaJ^ 2. Executive. jQomcil,£,3,M7 17s! 2dj This includes a Socfetary, £500; a Chief Clerk, £280: and a Clerk ' ;£240T; £240T -SVrelf tbs 6hief : Clerk; cbuld do the wljole work'wjth, tb.e assistance of a couple of juniors at £100 eachi and jthereby -effect -a- saying Vqf £540 per annum. The item Non-official , Members- £4Q4>,. n0 one -can- grumbld at, Tor if gentlemen devote a large lt'is only fair they should receive a^ adequate compensations ;

Provincial ' Council, >. £"3,588. The! -oflly item worth -noting in this arises! from the farcical: -attempt to ape parliamentary practise.; it is £101 for a cc t ' Sergeant-at-Arms." ■ ' '- Solicitor. — The Solicitor, in addition to >his salary p£ £600, received during the past year i 5337 for clerical assistance — in other words, he was first paid for doing work,' and then paid for" getting it done. . Police.-T- This' item is perfectly monstrous. The cost of maintaining order in this r respeqtable and orderly community having during the past year amounted to the enormous sum of nearly £20,000, or over Bs. a head for every man, woman,, and child in the country. Comparing this with the cost of police- in other provinces, a stranger would arrive at a conclusion very damaging to the population of Otago. He would find the cost in Auckland about 3s. 4d. a head ; in Wellington,, lid. 5 Nelson, 2s. 6d. ; Hawke's Bay, 6s. 6d. ; Southland, 55. ; afld Canterbury, about 6s. 8d. — Westland alone exceeding the rate in Otago. The natural conclusion drawn from such a comparison" must be that crime is' -frequent" afidi the criminal class numerous in this Province,; whereas' the' contrary is known to be true. A slight examination will show that at least £2,000 of this is expended in paying unnecessary officials. A single inspector, with a salary of £300 per annum, and, an extra allowance of £1 1 per diem while 1 travelling, might do all the work at present distributed between a Commissioner, Sub-Inspectors, and Escort Inspector, while a large reduction in the force might, safely be made without endangering public safety. Some efforts at retrenchment were f made three months ago, and the force was slightly reduced ; but anything short of a reduction of the expense by one-half will hardly satisfy the public. Harbour Department, £4,615 on the debit, and, Harbour Dues, £3,153 on the credit side of .the account, docs not appear^ a_ very healthy state of affairs ; but the fact is, the salaries in this, and indeed all the departments, were fixed at a time when the expenses of living were exceptionally high, and might be, without any injustice, reduced by at least one-third. At all events, such reductions should be made as will render the harbours selfsupporting. Gaol, £7,636, and District Gaols, £2,616, against Prison Labour, £362, and Maintenance of Debtors, £172, is a melancholy instance of extravagance, for be it understood that the above sums do not include building or re- ! pairing eljarges, but simply salaries and maintenance. It is highly gratifying in the face of so enormous an expenditure to read the opinion of the Roy al Commissioners on our prisons —

" That in none of the existing prisons in the Colony is any system of punishment carried out which to an appreciable extent, serves, any of the real ends and objects of the crimiual law, except that of the safe custody of the convicts ; that the punishments, as administered therein, are ordinarily neither afflictive nor irksome neither deterrent nor reformatory : but that, on the contrary, the tendency and ordinary effects of the present system are to harden old offenders ; to demoralise, corrupt, and debase those who have recently become criminals, and innocent persons waiting for trial ; and to afford opportunities for instruction and confederation in all kinds of crime and vice : so thafc almost every prison in the Colony may well be considered as discharging the functions of a training school for the creation and maintenance of regular criminal classes. Although we hardly needed the report to tell us that the labour is neither " severe nor irksome," and without any deterrent influence whatever. Otago occupies a worse position than any of the other Provinces in this matter of prison labour, the following being a, statement of gaol expenses and value of labour in the several colonial gaols for the five years ending 31st December, 1867 :— " Value of Prison. Expense. Prison Labour. Lyttelton - - £21,627 £15,244 Auckland - - 21,410 10,000 Invercafgill - - 9,071 750 Dunedin - - 34,613 7,260 Such a state of matters demands careful investigation and remedial action, but] unfortimately our politicians are not given to the study of Bentham. Collection of Jetty Dues, £870, , againstf 'Jetty Dues', £4,450. The cost of collection is here 20 per cent, of the amount; collected,, a charge gi"catly in excels of the necessities of the case. By allowing a. commission of say 10 per cent, to the collectors instead of a stated salary, the work might be donefor half the money.

Provincial Treasurer's Office, £1250; Land and Works Office, £3,288 ; Roads and Works, £3,588 ; General Road Board, £1,723 — all might be considerably- reduced by dismissing the supernumerary hands and paying the others salaries reduced by one-third, an amount quite sufficient considering the state of the markets imd the decreased price of all commodities. .< Sheep Inspectors, ,'£3,462, might be easily reduced ; anjd Inspectors of. Goldfields Depasturing Districts^ £700, is an item we do not expect' tp : see : re-; pj}ated\in the Balance Sheet of 1869-70, as* tlie work mignt3e done ' c[uite as wellfbj^^qAyf.pfi^ngeis^p/iid -by a fair percentage-^- their* collections. i Immip-ati(m^j^\medaAQfSi2e',£B7Oi Home Agtencjf, £850; Assistance] £8,7^0^ T m-3ill,^eJ^^Q^ ? against which >wp ' find- £1,854. We

have* so frequently attacked the present system of inundating the country with penniless immigrants, that comment on this item appears almost unnecessary. It may, hoAveA r er, interest non-employers of labour to learn that for the importation of ploughmen and barmaids during the past year, cA r ery member of the community has been taxed over 4s.

In the next item we have to regret not extravagance but parsimony ; for while over Bs. a head was considered a cheap price to pay for the Police 1 Force, ss. 6d. a head is the amount doled out for Educational purposes. £600 a year and travelling expenses is considered the value of a Commissioner, whose most fatiguing duty is to display his handsome figure about the streets of "Dunedin, while a man Avho directs the Avhole machinery of the educational system of Otago, whose energy and ability has contributed to place the Province in a foremost position in this respect, is only allowed £500 ! The Commissioner is allowed an accountant Avith £300 a year, to relieve him from the more arduous part of what might be supposed his duties, Avhile the Inspector of Education is only permitted the assistance of a boy at £100 per annum. Prevention is surely better than cure ; yet so small is the estimation in which the acknowledged preventive of crime — education — has been held, that the salaries of the police officers, Avhose education need go no further tluin the three R's, is considerably greater than that of the Educational Inspector, Avho is expected to have passed through a careful and expensive system of training. Judging by a comparison of the amount of Avork falling to their respective shares, Aye feel inclined to assert that no public officer in Otaga better merits a thousand a year than Mr. Hislop, or is less deserring of six hundred a year than Mr. Brannigan. In respect to this matter Nelson occupies a far higher position than any other Province, the respective expenditures for the year ending December, 1867, being in that district — Police, £2,990 ; Education, £5,680.

Passing over the Hospital, £6,373, with the comment that the small repayments, £188, betray considerable laxity in charging persons able to pay for the privileges of the Hospital — 'the next item we come to is the expenditure on the G-oldfields ; and here we find £250 charged for a Chinese Interpreter. Now, it is well known that the General Government only pay £100 for the services of a European Interpreter, who is stationed at the principal centre of Chinese population, and whose work is consequently far greater than that of the Provincial Interpreter, who is situated in a district where there are only some forty or fifty Chinese residents, and where the Court Cases are feAV and far between. By doubling the salary of the General Government Interpreter, his services might be retained for the Province, and a saving of £150 effected, while any one Avhois acquainted with the Celestial race will at once agree thafc a European is a far more reliable interpreter than a Chinese native, whose mind is biased by all the prejudices of clanship. The items Taavelling Expenses, £577; Unauthorised do., £260; and. Incidentals, £153 7s. lid., require explanation.

Survey Department, £18,400, is a startling amount to pay for such a service. This amount will be considerably reduced next year ; but we confess that unless the reduction is of at least two-thirds, our opinion will be that the expenditure is excessive. By the adoption of the contract by tender system and the appointment of a Travelling Inspector of Surveys, such a reduction might be easily effected. The same remark applies to the Roads and Works Department, £3,588, and the General Road Board, £1,723. This last item is, however, not to be found in the Estimates for the current year.

Telegraphs, £1,734, against Receipts for Telegrams, £808, is another instance of expenditure exceeding returns. It is likely, however that the value of the Government messages sent by wire, if they are not included in the receipts, would more nearly equalize the amounts. Still, reductions on the expenditure of last year maybe effected in the present by reducing the salaries and arranging to have the office of telegraphist and postmaster combined.

Miscellaneous. — Under this heading Aye find that the now abolished office of Inspector of "Weights and Measures cost the Province £773 during 1868, and that during the same period the munificent sum of £50 was granted to the Meteorological Observer. The science of meteorology has at home received the assistance it so deservedly merits, but here the encouragement granted has been confined to a beggarly £50 — not enough to get a supply of tenth-rate instruments. The practical value of accumulated observations to owners and masters of shipping, &c, seems, to "have been entirely ignored. The fame of Admiral Fitzroy had not apparently reached Dunedin in 1868 ! A sum of at least £1,000 should be yearly laid aside "for scientific purposes," and no small share of this ought to fall to the lot of meteorology. Another instance of the parsimonious treatment science has received at the hands of the Provincial Government, is afforded by: the grant to the Acclimatisation Society, one of the most valuable public bodies in Otago, which has received the munificent sum

of £580 ! Great capital has been mude out of the encouragement of new industries by the Provincial Council, yet a society formed for the express object of adding to our productive powers, has been treated with the utmost shabbiness. Miners have, however, little reason to flatter themselves on any more generous usage ; the whole sum allowed for prospecting during the year having been £409; a truly noble encouragement to the most important industry in the Province! We might with ease point out many additional instances of extravagance or parsimony, but as they have disappeared in this year's estimates we consider it well to- let the dead p st bury its dead. Still, those who have followed us throughout will perceive 'that by a sweeping reduction? of the Police Force, which is far too large for the requirements of tha Province — a reduction of officers rather than constables, however; the abolition of nil the Survey Department, with the exception of a travelling Inspector of Contracts; the clipping of all officials' salaries by at least twenty-five per cent., and the total abolition of all superfluous or redundant offices, and by the total abolition of assisted passages, a saving of at least £50,000 per annum might be brought about without injuring the efficiency of the public service. Half measures in the present financial position are worse than useless ; and the man who dares to inaugui*ate a full and sweeping system of economy and retrenchment, without fearing the murmurs of interested parties or the unpopularity consequent upon financial reform, will deserve the warmest support and encouragement the people in this Province have it in their power to bestow.

In our next issue we shall review the expenditure on public works during the past year, and point out the districts which have' received more than a due share of the provincial revenue.

(Between'tfce Criterion and the Octagoi