STATE FINANCES

Evening Star, Issue 20591, 17 September 1930, Page 9

STATE FINANCES

THE CASE OF AUSTRALIA ENGLISH JOURNAL’S COMMENT Free* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, September 16. The * Daily Mail ’ says: “ Public extravagance and the fall in the world prices in the wheat pool have brought Australia into the gravest economic difficulties. If the Commonwealth Government were to repudiate its interest on its Public Debt there would be an immediate and heavy fall in all the Government stocks. Moreover, Australia has to find £35,000,000 to pay interest on public loans. If this is not met Australia will bo a defaulter and will join the disreputable array of States, mostly in Central America, whoso credit is destroyed by similar acts of insolvency. But the trade unions of Australia, which are so powerful that they are almost a State within a State, have rejected a scaling down of rates of pay unless it is accompanied by a reduction of interest by investors. Repudiation of Government liabilities is thus proposed deliberately within the Empire. Perhaps the most practical measure of immediate aid would be to transfer to the Australian Government the produce of the income tax collected on interest on Australian loans paid in this country. The British Government would thus free itself from the reproach of making profit out of Australia’s membership in the Empire at a time when the Commonwealth is in the midst of dangerous economic difficulties."’ MR FENTON'S STATEMENT SPLIT IN PARTY POSSIBLE. MELBOURNE, September 17; (Received September 17, at 10 a.m.) Mr Fenton's statement that the resolutions passed by .the Labour Conference and the Australian Council of Trade Unions were not legally enforceable upon Federal Ministers, has aroused much resentment in union circles, and a split in the party between the industrial and the political sections is regarded as not improbable. The address of the Premier (Mr Hogan) to the Victorian Labour Party Conference in defence of the necessity for retrenchment of employees and salaries contained an emphatic contradiction of tjie statements that were being made by union leaders that a capitalist conspiracy was exploiting the current depression and that Sir Otto Niemeyer in his report on Australian finances was acting solely bn behalf of British financial interests. He said that Sir Otto had not visited Australia as a bailiff, as had been suggested, but bad come to represent the Bank of England, of which Australia desired to become a customer. NEW SOUTH WALES MR BAVIN’S POLICY SPEECH. SYDNEY, September 17. (Received September 17, at 12.30 p.ra.) Mr Bavin’s policy speech to-morrow, it is understood, will contain the following points;—The electors are to be asked to approve of the Premier’s financial agreement by returning the Government, so that the agreement can be given parliamentary ratification; the Premier promises to convene Parliament without delay for the presentation of the Budget and the Estimates; a Bill is to be introduced providing a limited moratorium for the relief of purchasers of homes and other property. To prevent an injustice to persons' who have paid off substantial sums on real estate and other property, such as farm machinery the moratorium will also apply to hire purchase agreements. Mr Bavin considers that if the State shows a determination to live within its means there will be a favourable reaction on the overseas money market, which will be reflected in improved conditions in Now South Wales. All possible means must be employed to cope with unemployment, and every avenue of Government work and private enterprise must be exploited to the fullest.