Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] TUESDAY, JULY, 5,1892. THE BUDGET.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4156, 5 July 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

TUESDAY, JULY, 5,1892. THE BUDGET.

Beino the extended title op the Wairaiupa Daily, with which ii is IDENTIOIL

It has been said that Mr Gladstone is , the only living statesman who can ! invest a Budget with interest for the j multitude. Mr Gosohen, however, the present Chancellor. of the Exchequer, is credited with aspirations ill this direotion, more or less likely to be realised; and there is no doubt that the art of making financial statements attractive is gradually being recognised as a necessary part of the equipment of the ambitious politician who pretends to aknowledgeof figures. " Our Mr Ballance" has for some years been seeking the bubble Reputation as a Colonial Treasurer; and without being able to compare him advantageously with the great men whom he would like to copy, we can honestly compliment the hon, gentleman on one success that he has achieved in this department of politics, He has turned the Financial Statement into a branph pf light literature j he has shown himself a master of political romance. Viewed in its rightful aspect as a wprk of fictjpni Mr Balhinpe's Budget possesses considerable merit, It exhibits a good deal of plot j and it should command as much attention as js usually bestowed upon literature which appeals to the imaginative faculties. '' Let us briefly examine this product of the Colonial Treasurer's brainthe thing is big enough, and ugly enough, to demand some serious attention. Like Cerberus, it has three heads; for it deals with the past, the present, and the future of our Colonial Finance. Mr _ Ballance naturally begins with a review of the receipts and expenditure for the year 1891-92. Here he is unavoidably accurate in his £ tai ements. There is no getting away from facts, when you are concerned with very recent history—Bince every statement can be verified as you make it, Consequently in the course of this unvarmsh'd tale, we are told, to our great satisfaction \ that the revenue of the Consolidated j Fund for the financial year ending on March Bht, 1892, exceeded the estimate by nearly £90,000 j that the expenditme from the same fund waß less than the estimate by about £26,000, We are told that the revenue of the Land Fund account ' was estimated to produce, in round niifnbers, £93,000 ; that it produced, as a matt,er of fact, £IOB,OOO. And, as we read these rigupes, together with 1 the mention of a substantial surplus that the present (ipvcrnniont found in the Treasury when they took office, we feel that the policy of Ministers' predecessors requires no further en- [ dorsement, No change in the inci* i dence of taxation had been introduced > bv this Ministry, at the time to which ( mm seturps relate; any evidence of " prosperity thai can bo shown thus far is oviden.ee of tjie wise' legislatipp > of the Atkinson Government,' Frpm this conclusion, we take it, t|iere is no escape, i So much for the past. The Colonial • Treasurer was obliged to deal • with it at some length, but '■ he must Jjaye known quite well \ that its healthy record would ! gain for his party no special credij, , amongintelligentand reasonablywellj informed colonists, However, the • present-as expounded in the gospel ' according to Ballancef-is bright with '■ hope; and the near'future is to bring fruition. In the plana whioh are formed fprtbis current year, we are ' to'find the''salvation pf the Colony ; from financial diflfioulty, .Uieoreation of a sound system of raising arid administering revenue. What,]then, are tlieseplans ? . • i foremost jn point of importance is, of course, the Land and Income Tax, Now, putting aside all objections of 1 >prinoiple(wt<ioh, indeed, have been 1

well threshed out by this time) we are constrained at this stage to give expression to the grave disquiet which is caused in connection with this tax by the'unoertain sound o! Mr Ballance's trumpet. The Colonial Treasurer is absolutely unable to tell us what amount the tax will bring in. He pleads the difficulty of forming an estimate—and we agree with him.! He mentions some possible change in the method of assessing values—and while we shudder atthe prospect of renewed inquisitions, we are most concerned to reflect that in the end

the revenue will' probably not he forthcoming which Mr Ballance looks to this untried tax to produce, We pass to ether proposals relating to land. Land-that is to say, the individual ownership of land—is Mr Balance's Uie noin. The Natives are to have their turn now; they are to bo taught the iniquity of holding broad aores. Native lands are to be purchased to the tune of £50.000 per annum; or, as an alternative, they are to be amenable to the ordinary operation of the Land Tax, About Mr Balance's final reference to' land, there is a grim suggestiveness, European freeholders (chiefly in the South, it would seem) are to be bought out, bit by bit, "atfirst with their own consent"— el aprh 1 But it takes a long time for schemes like these to produce actual returns, while in the meantime their accomplishment calls for the expenditure of a good deal of public money, Thus farjn fact, we have come to no assured source of immediate revenue. (Spending money is freely Bpoken of; as when the Treasurer proposes to take £200,000 from the Consolidated Fund and devote it to the continua-

tion of railways and the construction of roads and bridges-doubtlesson.the. " co-operative" system. At last, however, we find reference made to a source of revenue; and a very bad one it is, from a politico-economical point of view. Itis the Custom-house. In spite of hopes held out to us from time to time, we are to get no abates ment of the high Protective tariff which taxes the necessaries of life to the point of positive cruelty,; In spite of past Governmental assurances, we are to get no Penny Po3t, The Ministerial view would seem to be that experiments in law-making are so interesting that they must bo prosecuted at any cost—even at the cost of broken faith. From these experiments revenue may or may not result; then let Protection find the money, while the Cabinet fools with its theories. Truly tho glowing picture of prosperity presented to us by the Colonial Treasurer is produced with pigments that fade in the daylight of truth and soberness,