A Cry from Tasmania.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17940, 7 December 1923, Page 8

A Cry from Tasmania.

Though it is almost unknown that n British "State should have to make a despairing appeal for assistance in warding off bankruptcy, the news which we publish to-day about Tasmania is not a surprise. Two montha ago the Premier announced that the deficit for the year was nearly three hundred thousand pounds, and that after the most drastic cut in public expenditure there would still be a deficit of at least two hundred and fifty thousand next year. As the public debt was already twelve millions, or £IOO for every man, woman, and cMld in the State, he asked for further taxation, and was turned out of office. Now his successor, the leader of, a Labour Government —surely the first Labour Government ever placed in office as an alternative to the payment of more taxes —is in Melbourne on his knees before the Federal Treasurer begging for a, direct gift from the Commonwealth to save the State from insolvency. The cable smessage suggest that the appeal is for something in excess of £150,000, or a little more than half the present deficit, and that it is presented as a smaller evil than the whole burden of responsibility If the country fails. If, therefore, the Labour Government did promise to save the taxpayer, it will not be its fault if it does not do it. Except a request for relief from the whole burden of debt instead of half, there could be no more abject' appeal by a Government and if there are Federal bowels of compassion for prodigal states, the mission to Melbourne may succeed. But the "Argus" said recently that if Federal politicians have any sympathy for Tasmania, they have "dissembled it roost "adroitly," though the "Argus" itself has sympathy to the extent of agreeing tlut Tasmania's resources are small, and that it lias suffered unjustifiable hardship under the Navigation and Arbitration Acts. Generally, too, it is compelled as a member of the Commonwealth to dress better and live faster than it can afford. It has no more people than Canterbury, but has a Governor (when it can find his salary), a Parliament and a Public service, and although it has a Federal subsidy of £85,000, that is a comparatively small set-off to the formidable burdens federation imposes. It is quite plain, too, that; retrenchment has been too long delayed. The deficit has , been mounting for years, but it was only three mouths ago that proposals wore made of really heioic economies. And now the Labour Party, which was permitted to take office for throe months to enable the country to see what practical measures it had to offer for relief, has turned to Melbourne for help instead of to the people whose responsibility the <.'ebtu must always remain.