The total Currency Revenue for 1902 was given in the official text of the President's Message of May, 1903, as $69.129,483 and was so inserted in the Council's Report for last

year.

It will be seen, however, that the total given in the above table, which, with the details shown, is taken from the Official Report of the Finance Department for 1902, is correct. No explanation of the discrepancy appears to have been published.

In last year's Annual Report the Council drew attention to the fact that in the Budget for 1903 the additional Import Duties had been continued when the special reasons for their imposition had ceased to exist. It is satisfactory to notice that the 12 per cent. at which these

additional duties stood in the Estimates for 1903 has been reduced to 2 per cent. in the Budget for 1904, the two 5 per cent. taxes having been abolished. As a partial setoff against the consequent loss to Revenue, Congress granted the Government the sum of $3,000,000 gold, which appears in the same Budget, and represents part of the £1,500,000 received by the Government for the sale of the two cruisers built for them in Italy at the time of the difficulty with Chili. Receipts of this kind cannot, however, be regarded as ordinary Revenue. The balance of £900,000 does not appear in the accounts, but is understood to have been placed on deposit at the Bank of England to be used as required for payment of coupons and other sums payable in Europe.

It will be noticed that the tax on Natural Wines has been suppressed-this was done in order to assist the Wine industry.

ESTIMATED AND ACTUAL REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE FROM 1893.

In the following Table the Budget Estimates are compared with the actual Revenue and Expenditure for the The returns from which these figures are obtained are, however, somewhat confusing, and they can only be regarded as approximate :

last ten years.

Official Premium fixed by the Conversion Law of 1899.

N.B. Some of the above figures, which have been already given in the earlier Reports, have now been corrected from more recently published returns.

According to the Report of the Finance Department for 1899, there had been uninterrupted deficits since 1863. From the above Table, however, there appears to have been a small surplus in 1894; this may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that, in the Table, Currency is reduced to

Gold at the average premium for the year, while the actual returns would be based upon the rates ruling from time to time.

The following Table gives the Revenue since 1883

As President Roca's term of office expires in October next, his successor, Dr. Quintana, having already been elected, the Message read at the opening of Congress on 5th May last was largely composed of a retrospect of the progress of the nation during his six years' administration. His remarks under the head of " Finance," although based on data which to a great extent have been embodied in the present and former Reports, are of considerable interest as a summary of the results achieved, and are partly reproduced below:

At the date of the commencement of the present Administration,