8.—9

Apart from the foregoing, the benefit of the salary-reductions effected by the Finance Act, 1931 (No. 1), did not enure to the Office, for it was provided by a section of the Finance Act, 1931 (No. 2), that the amount of the salary-reductions should in the case of the Office be paid to the Consolidated Fund. The amount involved was £23,121. The Office was permitted to retain the further salaryreductions effected after the close of the year by the National Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1932 ; but they did not affect the finances for the year under review. 35. The remaining expenditure, which had received the closest attention in past years, was with the advent of the depressed conditions subjected to a most searching examination, and it has since been periodically reviewed to ensure that savings are effected wherever it is possible to do so, in view of the increasing volume of work, without impairing efficiency. 36. The following table showing the total expenditure of the Office over the past ten years in comparison with the business being dealt with is informative : —

It will be seen that the percentage of the expenditure to the value of estates and funds under administration has dropped from I*o2 in 1921 to 051 during the past year, a very substantial reduction. Moreover, the expenditure from 1928 onwards includes the cost of the services rendered by the Office to the Rural Intermediate Credit Board and refunded by the Board ; but the statistics relating to the business do not, however, contain any representation of the additional work performed by the Office in this regard. 37. In another portion of the report it has already been explained that after the close of the year the Office sustained a retrospective deduction from the revenue of the year as a result of the operation of Part IV of the National Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1932, which imposed a special stamp duty on interest derived from certain classes of debentures and like securities. The duty which became payable on interest which had accrued during the year amounted in all to £7,049, and the loss represented by this duty has had to be borne by the Office, as the net amount of the interest had by the close of the year been credited to the individual accounts and in many cases paid to the persons beneficially interested, so that no recovery was possible at the time when the stamp duty was imposed. 38. As the result of the various factors which have been referred to, and also because in common with other institutions the Office has suffered some losses of interest in respect of its investments through deficiencies arising out of the realization of securities and remissions ordered by the Courts under the mortgagors-relief legislation, the operations of the Office over the past year resulted in a loss of £18,614, despite the restricting of the expenditure to a minimum. It will be observed that this figure is considerably less than the total amount involved in the salary-reductions under the Finance Act, 1931 (No. 1), which the Office was not permitted to retain, and the stamp duty which after the close of the year became payable retrospectively. There will, moreover, be a substantial offset from the commission earnings, which will, when times improve and realizations can be effected, be received as remuneration for services actually rendered during the year.

15

Value of Fstates Number of Gross Expenditure and Year. vaiueot estates wffls Percentage of Value of an un s ' on deposit. Estates and Funds. £ £ Per Cent. 1921 ,. .. 22,364,319 28,356 233,399 1-02 1922 .. .. 25,497,779 31,839 210,109 0-82 1923 .. .. 28,904,798 35,502 190,315 0-66 1924 .. .. 32,404,724 39,682 208,015 0-64 1925 .. .. 35,570,642 44,102 222,948 0-63 1926 .. .. 38,009,480 48,957 251,218 0-66 1927 .. .. 41,043,523 53,531 244,189 0-59 1928 .. .. 44,155,548 58,065 248,401 0-56 1929 .. .. 48,334,790 62,841 269,849 0-56 1930 .. .. 53,049,437 68,253 301,223 0-57 1931 .. .. 57,527,263 73,523 312,701 0-54 1932 .. .. 59,132,512 77,124 300,819 0-51