WAR OUTLAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1941, Page 4

WAR OUTLAY

MR HAMILTON GIVES DETAILS

TOTAL OF £47,000,000 UP TO JULY 31

APPROXIMATELY ONE-HALF FROM TAXATION. INTERNAL AND OVERSEA BORROWING. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Up to July 31. 1941, New Zealand has spent just on £47,000.000 on the war, according to information given by Mr Hamilton, a member of the War Cabinet, during his speech in the second reading debate on the Finance Bill, in the House of Representatives yesterday. Mr Hamilton said that members of the War Cabinet were furnished with a monthly statement of the War Expenses Account, and he thought it would not be out of place for him to give a brief analysis of the latest figures available, those up to a fortnight ago.

On the payments side, said Mr Hamilton, expenditure on the Navy totalled £2,108,898; on the Army, £17,249,621; on the R.N.Z.A.F., £7,487,796. Civil payments absorbed £278 593, the aeroplane fund (fighters for Britain). £94,305; temporary transfer repaid, £700,000; amortisation c« debt, £3,647,992. The cash balance brought forward to begin the current year was £4,428,548. The grand total was £35,995,753. “I often hear it asked,” said Mr Hamilton, “ ‘How is the War Expenses Account getting on?’ It is certainly wise that the public should be made aware of these figures, as they constitute an expenditure that will have a serious effect on our economic life.” Mr Hamilton said that though the War Expenses figures were published monthly he had not seen any very severe criticism. He considered the method of financing the war would bear critical examination.

Total receipts paid into the account since it was opened in September, 1939, said Mr Hamilton, were £49,129,787. Of this amount, £24,612,237 was represented by loan money, £8,176,988 having been borrowed overseas, and £16,435,249 in New Zealand. The amount received into the account by way of taxation from the beginning of the war was £24,517,550, with other receipts of about £3,400,000. The total expenditure to date since the war was just on £47,000,000, but over £5,000,000 of this was amortisation of debt. It would therefore be seen that the receipts were pretty evenly divided between loan money and taxation.

Mr Hamilton also,gave details of receipts and expenditure in the War Expenses Account for the financial year ended March 31, 1941 —the first full year of the war. The year began with a cash balance brought forward of £953,380. Borrowings in New Zealand amounted to £11.886,252, and in Britain £6,266.231. a total of £18.152,483 in loans. Taxation amounting to £15,745.247 was paid into the account, and there was a temporary transfer of £500,000. Other receipts were £644,643. The grand total of receipts was £35,995,753.