XLI

8.—6

Legislation extending provisions for child-welfare. Extension of school medical and dental services. Adjustment of the Teachers' Superannuation Fund. Further decentralization of the work of Public Trust Office. Additions to hospital at Rarotonga. Extension of functions of the Native Trustee. Departmental balance-sheets in commercial form to be laid before Parliament. Economies in the Public Service. Expenditure to be reduced. State services to be made self-supporting. Total estimated revenue, £28,000,000 ; estimated expenditure, £29,266,367. Estimated cash surplus, £3,653,927. Readjustment of taxation. Land-tax: Rebate of 10 per cent, for payment before or within twenty-one days after due date. CONCLUSION. As a result of the war there has been a greatly increased expenditure in the Dominion, such as increase of interest and sinking fund on the large sums borrowed during and since the war period, pensions for incapacitated and partially incapacitated soldiers, allowances to dependants of soldiers, and increases of salaries and bonuses to persons in the employment of the State rendered necessary to meet the increase in the cost of living. Along with those items of increased expenditure there has been a very serious drop in the prices of our staple products, particularly wool, which fell to a lower price than has been reached for twenty years. The demand for New Zealand beef also fell off, with a corresponding reduction in price, and hence for the last few months we have suffered from financial and commercial depression such as the Dominion has not known for many years past. A change for the better has, however, recently taken place. At recent wool sales, both in New Zealand and England, prices have improved considerably, and the feeling is growing that the Dominion is over the worst of its troubles, and that the prosperity which we enjoyed for so many years will, by the exercise of economy and industry on the part of our people, soon return to these Islands. I am glad to be able to say that, so far as it is possible to judge, the season on which we have entered will be one of the best that we have experienced for many years past. Already large quantities of dairy-produce have been forwarded to the cold stores, and in this branch of agriculture, owing to the very large number of settlers who have gone in for dairying, and the new country which has been made available, the season promises to be a record one. It is to be hoped that the producers will receive satisfactory returns for their labour, and, if so, every section of the community will be benefited. We have difficulties to contend with at present, some of them serious—many of our producers have made losses during the past year —but I ask my fellow-citizens to have confidence in themselves and the confidence which it deserves in the country to which they belong. We have had depressions in this country in previous years and got through them successfully, perhaps none the worse for the experience then gained, and I have no doubt that in these respects history will repeat itself on the present occasion. There is no royal road to prosperity. There is only one way to get there, and that is by work ; by continuous and persistent effort; by each individual and each section of the community putting forth all the energy which they possess and using the talents with which Nature has provided them in order to get back to the industrial and financial prosperity which we formerly enjoyed.

vi—B. 6.