The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1891.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3800, 2 May 1891, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1891.

Tue revenue returns for the past year are phenomenal! A surplus of L 143.965 on the twelve mouths' transactions is a splendid testimony to the progress th*t the colony is

making, and to the capable administration of its finances by Sir Hairy Atkinson. The present Ministry have neither made nor marred the surplus, they have slightly reduced it by tbe'r good natured liberality in the matter of the honorarium, but during their brief tenure of power they have had but little opportunity for producing any marked immediate effect on the colonial finances. Common sense

would suggest that it would be prudent now to let well alone and to continue the finances on the lines laid down by Sir Harry merely

reducing taxation to the extent justified by the surplus, but common sense is unlikely to control the actions of our new masters, who j threaten to revolutionise the taxation of the colony, and this means converting the surplus of this year into a corresponding deficiency

twelve months hence. We could have tolerated Mr Ballance as a Colonial Treasurer if he had been content to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and not have allowed Messrs Seddon and McKenzie to drive him into playing ducks and drakes with the public purse. When we get a surplus like the present one, we are almost persuaded that one of those leaps and bounds which Sir Julius Vogel prophecied, but was never able to bring about, has at last befallen us. But if a change in the incidence of taxation be brought about by tie aew broom, the leap forw iH v 1 inevitably be followed by a big fall backwards.