THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1908. THE COUNTRY'S FINANCES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9137, 13 July 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1908. THE COUNTRY'S FINANCES.

Anyone cdrefully reading the Financial Statement cannot fail to grasp the most apparent and serious fact that the cost of administration, or at any rate, the annual expenditure by the Government is increasing a great deal more rapidly than the increasing revenue justifies. The nett public debt has reached the, alarming t/>tal of £63,524,961, despite that for some years past there has been an annual increase in revenue; ahd notwithstanding that the Government received last year the record and large revenue of £9,055,946. There was a surplus of £767,849, yet the nett public debt was increased by £825,810. In ten years (1898-19U8), while the revenue has increased enormously until the record sum of £9,055,946 has be:;n reached, the nett public debt has mounted up from £44,081,521 to £63,524,961, or, in other words, has been atlded to to the extent of £21,443,440, and during the past five years the increase has been on an average £1,987,836, or, practically, £2,000,000 per annum. Although there was a record revenue, although there was a surplus of three-quarters of a million, or thereabouts, the gross public debt in-

creased from £64,179,040 to £66,453,897, or by £2.274,857. "This may appear," says the Premier, "to be a very large increase, but bo long as the policy to acquire land for close settlement, construction of railways, roads and bridges, lending to local bodies, and making advances to settlers is approved of by Parliament, the public debt of the Dominion must go on increasing, and it must not be forgotten that our assets, many of th.nn direct interest-bearing, proportionately increased. A large portion of this increase of debt is devoted to expenditure of a reproductive character." This is the Premier's explanation of the large increase, but he expresses no opinion as to whether he considers the position satisfactory; indeed, so far as being an expression of opinion, the statement is absolutely colourless. "A portion of this increase of debt," we are told, "is devoted to expenditure of a reproductive character," but why is it, we may ask. that all the borrowed money is not devoted to reproductive works, seeing that the revenue received always so largely excseds the estimated expenditure? The Government are going to raise this year a loan of one million and a quarter, and obviously it should be spent upon works in regard to the reproductiveness (or profit) of which there should be no manner of doubt. Apart, however, from what the Government may do this year with their borrowed money, the serious fact stands out clearly thst the administration of the Government is costing altogether too much —the working expenses of the country's business are too high in comparison with the benefits received.