THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1909. THE DOMINION'S FINANCES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3105, 30 January 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1909. THE DOMINION'S FINANCES.

The Premier of the country is an optimist of no mean order. That he is an optimist is a fact that in itself is not a displeasing quality for the Premier to possess, but Sir Joseph Ward is, also, a politician, and he is the leader of a party that has been in power for many years. Moreover, that party has for years past been very extravagant, and has wasted large sums of money, and as the day

of reckoning is slowly but surely coming round, Sir Joseph Ward has, perhaps, to be rather more optimistic that he naturaly is, at any rate he possibly feels that it is his bounden duty to the State to appear to bt-. overjoyed with a financial position that really does not warrant ecstasies of delight on the part of any leading member of the Government. On several occasions fairly recently the Premier has expressed his satisfaction with the financial condition of the country, and at Hastings, the other day, he remarked that a statement of the Dominion's finances for the last nine months, which would come out very shortly, would show that New Zealand was only one of all countries, including America and the United Kingdom, to show increased revenue. Wonderful indeed, but what, we would ask, w the benefit to the people of the increased revenue? A large and increasing revenue does not necessarily spell prosperity for the people—'it does, however, imply heavy taxation, and that is exactly what the people of New Zealand are —heavily taxed. A large revenue, forsooth! When France, in 1870, and for several years later, made superb efforts to wipe off the German indemnity, she raised an enormous revenue, but French people, though rich in patriotism, were poor in pocket, and the financial condition of the country was unsatisfactory in the extreme. There is no use discussing^.revenue without, discussing expenditure, and the chief point about the expenditure is to ascertain to what directions the money has been expended. The financial condition of the country is not satisfactory, and the more than hints at retrenchment, on the part of the Government, is an admission on their part that the position is so serious that it must be faced without delay. A Wellington paper, commenting editorially, puts forward a few salient facts in the following sentences:—"The September quarter , ended with a deficit of £26,718 after a long series of surpluses for that quarter ranging, roughly, from two to four hundred thousand pounds. For tie half-year ended September 30th, the usual balance on the right side, amounting in 1907 to about £300,000, had suddenly been transformed into a deficit of about £170,000. For the DecemDar quarter the revenue amounted to £2,591,388, and,the expenditure to £2,449,831. The position for the nine months as compared with the nine months of tne preceding year will appear from the following table: —

190S 1907 £ £ Revenue 6,421,827 6,310,902 Expenditure 6,451,936 5,876,613 While, the revenue has only increased by about <£110,0(?'), the expenditure has increased by over £400,000. For the nine months past, in other words, the expenditure has exceeded the revenue by £30,109 —a sharp change indeed from the preceding year, the first nine months of which showed an excess of revenue amounting to £434,289. In the year, that is to say, something has gone wrong to the extent of nearly half a million sterling."