LANG'S MUDDLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 225, 22 September 1932, Page 7

LANG'S MUDDLE.

CHAOTIC FINANCE.

LEGACY OF DEBT.

Stevens' Task to Stop Appalling Drift. N.S.W. STATE BUDGET. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) SYDNEY, September 21. The Premier and Treasurer of New South Wales, Mr. B. S. Stevens, delivered the Budget to-day in the Legislative Assembly. He emphasised the extraordinary difficulties of the budgetary task owing to the chaotic condition of the State's finances when lie took office.

Mr. Stevens said his predecessor, Mr. J. T. Lang, had spent 25/ for every 20/ collected. He had lived from week to week, meeting only such cash payments as could not be evaded and deriving compulsory loans by not meeting interest and other debts.

The outcome was that in IS months debts amounting to £20,000,000 had accumulated either by way of Treasury bills or unpaid accounts. Mr. Lang's year had ended with a deficiency of £14,227,844.

The position in regard to the current year, said Mr. Stevens, was: Estimated expenditure, £49,535,082; estimated receipts from all sources, £45,185,082, leaving a deficiency of £4,350,000. His Budget represented an honest effort to CQtiiine to manageable proportions the appalling drift, and to eusure that there should be no default either in the public or the social services.

The Premier said lie -anticipated that receipts, after allowing for the reduction in railway freights, taxation and rates of interest, would show an increase of £2,705,292, and expenditure was estimated to show a decrease of £7,109,552. No Taxation Increase. Continuing, Mr. Stevens announced that -there would be no increase in taxation. Next year, if circumstances warranted it, as he believed they would, the Government, working in co-operation with the Federal authorities, would lighten the burdens on industry, giving it every chance to expand and increasing the safety margins of investment securities. The Government intended to reduce the unemployment relief tax on earnings below £3 10/ a week. Rates of interest to Crown debtors would be reduced from January 1. Railway and tramway fares would be reduced to the benefit largely of working people in the metropolitan area. Rationing would lie discontinued on the railways, tramways and social services, where overlapping would be co-ordjna*ted. J The whole of the net profits from the State lottery would be devoted to hospitals, continued the Premier. Railway freights on wool and live stock already had been reduced 10 per cent. Coal freights also had been reduced.

Widows' pensions would be reviewed with a view to seeking out those not entitled to them. The net lose on the railways last year was £4,555,004. The estimated loss for the current year was £1,970,000.

Mr. Stevens expressed satisfaction that the huge annual expenditure on the harbour bridge had ended, also that the major cost of putting the city railway underground had been defrayed. These works now were at a reproductive stage.

The Budget disclosed that the Government had been able to reduce the deficit by many millions and now it promised to reduce the cost of government in the current year by more than £7,000,000. Everything was working out in accordance with the Premiers' Plan and preparing the way for complete national recovery.