Methodist Finance.

Missions Board Shows Good Figures.

THE annual meeting of the Methodist Board of Missions held in February received a remarkable statement of accounts.

The very able treasurers, who control the affairs of this large organisation, appalled by the prospects of 1931, pruned their estimates a year ago with courage, and brutally cut down every available item of expenditure. Even then, they feared a crippling deficit. But for some reason, the voluntary gifts to the Mission organisation kept up in a remarkable way, so that when the treasurers washed up the year’s ac counts at the end of December, 1931, they found that the excess of income over expenditure was £6,934; while, out of the adjustment of certain reserve ac counts, they gained another £3,500. The net result was that the general balance sheet, which showed on December 31, 1930, an accumulated deficit of £29,282, showed a deficit at the end of 1931 of only £18,806.

Exchange was a worry to the Board of Missions; but, through the goodwill of the British Society in London, they made arrangements by which moneys for India and Fiji were drawn from London, while the Australian Society, in each case, deposited the amount of the transfer in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, plus 25 per cent. The amounts thus deposited are being held here, and if and when the exchange im proves, they will be sent to Britain and, of course, a corresponding amount of the 25 per cent, will be saved.