The Finance for the Year

The opponents of the Government had told them that capital would be driven away, that the population would fly from the country, and that [unclear: Jisaste] would occur. Had these prognostiontions been verified? He intended to give them now the financial results of the year. (Cheers.) They had been told in the days gone by that finance was the weakness of the Liberal party There was a great deal in that warning, and ever since he had had a seat in Parliament, and so long as he held a seat on the Treasury benches, finance must be the strong point of the Liberal party, A strong finance was essential to the well-being of this country. (Cheers.)

Mr Seddon then announced the revenue results for 1902-1903, as follows:—

[The sum of £3,195.143 represents the net surplus only, and does not include the surplus brought over in the balance from year to year.]

The Premier went on to say that those who asserted that finance was a weakness of the Liberal party, he referred to these ten years of surpluses; and so far as be could see, he would say, without undue optimism, that we should have another good round surplus this year. (Cheers.) What had been kept from the people of this country was the fact that during the ten years, the Govornment had transferred to the Public Works fund for development purposes the sum of £3,175,000. (Applause.) In other words. If the Government bad expended the same amount of loan money on works and development, the people would have bad to find in round numbers £100,000 in the way of interest. As it was, the fact that these works were done out of revenue stood to our credit as a self-contained country. In none of the other colonies was such information given to the people as he was giving that evening. If they took the credit of the country, they found that our 4 per cents in 1893 stood at 103¾: last month our 4 per cents, notwithstanding the depression that existed at Home in the money market, stood at 107—(cheers)—or 2¼ better than they were in 1893. Our 3½ per cents in 1893 stood in the month of April last they stood at 103, or 5½ better than in 1893. He quoted these figures to show that our country's credit was not suffering as the result of the Liberal party's being in power. There had been an increase in the receipts during the ten years of £1,119,000, and there was a difference between our expenditure ami receipts of something like £38,000; so that, when they heard it said outside, "All right, we admit that there has been an increase in receipts, but what about the increase in expenditure." the answer was that tbe expenditure was lower than the receipts, and on that g round we are on the safe side of the ledger. (Applause.)

Continuing, he said that if they took this great city of Wellington, they found that there had been an increase of population of 11,532; that the capital value had increased bv £5,069,911 and the unimproved value by £3,150,096—or an increase in the city of Wellington of nearly a million per annum, and if they took this as indicative of what had been going on in the other parts of the colony, he said they were the best judges of the result of the ten years' reign of the Liberal party, with himself as leader. (Cheers.)

Judging, therefore, from the financial results, and judging from every fact which should be known and observed in dealing with this question, he heartily congratulated this colony and its people upon the improved conditions which prevailed. (Cheers.)