LOAN IN BULLION

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 226, 20 June 1931, Page 7

LOAN IN BULLION

Alleged London Offer

To Australia

LACK Oi: ENTHUSIASM

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.

(Bee. June 19, 9 p-m.) Sydney, June 19.

A group of financiers in London through a Sydney agency is reported to hare offered a £15,000,000 loan in gold for a long term at market Interest to the Commonwealth Government, the bullion to ba paid for by bonds with a currency of 40 years at 4 per cent

The Prime Minister, Mr. J. H. Seullin, declined to comment but displays no enthusiasm about the offer. Some: of his colleagues express the opinion that the lenders must be very well disposed to Australia, having regard to tiie financial plight of the country and the more profitable field elsewhere. > SHIPMENT OF GOLD Senate’s Approval Secured ATTACK ON THE DEFICIT Canberra, June 19. Senate 'passed the Bill authorising the shipment of £5,000,000 worth of gold. '• In , the House of Representatives, Mr. : B. G. Theodore, the Federal Treasurer, announced that legislation would be Introduced immediately Increasing the sales tax from 2} to 5 per cent, and the primage , duty from 4 to 10 per cent, and also Increasing Income tax. It was thus hoped to reduce the deficit from £20,000,000 to £4,500,000. Twenty, per cent cuts would also be made without delay in Public Servants’ salaries and ex-soldiers’ pensions, but due consideration would be given to Indigent cases. Pensions would in future be denied the widows of soldiers who remarried, and also the children of such remarriages. DECISION APPLAUDED Country Can Move Swiftly (Rec. June 19, 8 p.m.) London, June 10. The “Financial News” says the rapidity with which the gold shipment measure was passed demonstrates that Australia can move swiftly when the occasion demands. “It is clear evidence of' the fulfilment of the vow of politicians to pull together/’ states the newspaper. “The gold shipment disposes of Australia’s mbst urgent problem.”