DOMINION FINANCES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2553, 14 July 1909, Page 4

DOMINION FINANCES.

•Ml?. KENT’S ALLEGATIONS DENIED. [PIiK ‘’llVM* ASSOCIATION’ WELLINGTON., July 13. Tlio Hon. J. A. Millar, interviewed by a ‘•Post” reporter, replied to a statement made by Air. Kent, chairman of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, that the revenue last year was over half-a-million pounds short of the expenditure. It appeared to him that Mr. Kent had made an error by taking'the amount brought forward, £767,846, at the beginning of the year, and subtracting from that the balance at the end of the year, £184,321, and then saying it was an excess of expenditure over revenue. A careful study of the figures would have, shown that £800,600 was transferred from the consolidated revenue to the Public If orks I' und. Thil was not an expenditure from the Consolidated Fund, but was a transfer to the .Public Works bund. In lion of borrowing for years past the surplus from the. Consol ulu fed .1* und liticl ueeii transferred to the Public Works T und, hut the surplus of this year can only be transferred in the following year, ’fhe result was that the ascertained surplus for the year ending 31st- Man'll. 1908, was in due course transferred to the Public Works Fund, plus £32,000 front' the revenue account of the year. To put the position clearly, so that no one could make a mistake he gave the actual figures, as follows : —Revenue account for the year—Revenue, £9,001,185; other receipts, £800: total, £9,001 ;985. Expenditure account —Appropriations, £8,785,513; excess of receipts over expenditure; £216,472; balance brought forward from file previous vear, £767,849; excess of receipts as above, £216,472; total, £984.321 ; transferred ‘to Public "Works ' Fund. ‘"800,000; credit balance 31st Mii-rch, 1909, £184,321. Mr. Millar maintains that thisc position is made- o’car by SnLoseph Ward’s Invercargill speech, ftinco 1891 not less than £7,230,000 lias been transferred to the Public Works; Fund from the Consolidated Fund.