STATE TRADING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 204, 30 August 1933, Page 5

STATE TRADING.

OPPOSITE TREND IN N.S.W. LEGACIES FROM LABOUR. (By Telegraph-—rress Association.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

Commenting on the relationship between New Zealand and New South Wales in State trading, Mr. A. S. Burgess, president of the New Zealand Associated Chambers of Commerce, who returned 1 to-day from a visit to Australia, said he had been particularly struck by the evidence in New South Wales of a swing away from State enterprise. Industrial undertakings now operated by the New South Wales Government, apart from the railways, tramways-and motor busee, were mainly the residue of a large number established by the various Labour Governments of 1911 onward, said Mr. Burgess. The majority of these enterprises had proved complete financial failures and had been aban-

doned. Durin" the prosperous constructional years prior to 1929 the State brick worke, the Monier concrete pipe works and the State metal quarries in New South Wales had been conducted at considerable profit, due largely to preferential privileges in the supply to the Government of material for Government works, with partial or complete exemption from taxation and similar advantages over private enterprise. In 1932, however, the Monier pipe works was the only one of the three disclosing a profit. Until 1930 State iiidustrial undertakings had not been subject to income tax, but legislation that year had directed assessment on those concerns of taxation in respect of transacted business. The trading results of State industrial undertakings still operative for the year ended June 30, 1932, were as follow: — Brick works, loss, £8629; Monier pipe works, profit, £7899; metal quarries, loss, £2082; Government Tourist Bureau, loss, £24,405; Leeton canning factory, loss, £17,254; Lithgow coal mine, loss, £112,000; dockyard and engineering works, loss, £70,145.