HUGE COSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 114, 17 May 1933, Page 10

HUGE COSTS.

INTEREST AND EXCHANGE. PUBLIC BODIES EST SYDNEY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 12. Two interesting illustrations have been provided recently here, of the way in which tho two charges of interest and exchange eat into State and municipal funds. The Sydney Water Board has been subjected to strong criticism by Mr. Dunningham, Minister of Labour, end it has been trying hard to cut down its estimates of expenditure for the next financial year. One of the Aldermen has been- making inquiries at the Treasury, ..and he believes that .it will be possible to get a slight reduction in interest charges, amounting to about £124,000 per annum. The total estimate for interest on capital has be.en put down at about £1,700,000; and these huge figures alone are enough to explain the deficit of over £120;000 which the board expects to face. A parallel instance is the case of the City Council's electricity department. The statement submitted for last year shows that the net profit is over £43,000; and this is after paying the enormous sum of £172,250 exchange on remittances abroad. No wonder the official head of the department describes this as a great achievement! The foregoing figures might well induce politicians and public men to' reflect seriously upon the effects produced upon our public resources by such! charges as these. Possibly, even primary producers, if they could be forced to consider such facts as these, might be persuaded that in assailing protective duties and wages, and the high cost of production generally, they are "barking up the wrong tree," and that a very substantial improvement might be effected in our commercial and industrial | and financial prospects by concentrating I on , "tlie other end of the scale," and striving to reduce interest charges and to lower rather than raise the rate Of exchange.