WELLINGTON HARD HIT

Evening Star, Issue 21320, 26 January 1933, Page 8

WELLINGTON HARD HIT

£30,000 LESS MONEY WITH EXCHANGE HIGH NG FURTHER WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED [Per United Press Association.l WELLINGTON, January 26. The mayor, when interviewed, told a reporter to-day that there would be an increase in Wellington’s overseas .interest bill of between £15,000 and £16,000, and the indirect effect of the exchange rate on sources of revenue made it clear that Wellington would be about £25,000 worse off next financial j’ear on account of exchange inflation. There were other items on which revenue would be decreased next financial year, and so far as he could see at present the city would have £30,000 less than in the current year. The net result was that next year there would be available for carrying on the services of the city apparently only half the amount expended in the year immediately prior to the present council coming into office. One thing now quite clear was that,, after March 31 this year, the council would not be able to carry on any unemployment relief work. That would have to be financed and controlled wholly by the Government. Last year, out of revenue alone, the council spent £B,OOO on unemployment relief. Exchange inflation had wiped out definitely any possibility' of the council carrying any unemployed in future. Perhaps Mr Goates, as Minister of Finance, said the mayor, would find that the burden ho had created by his exchange inflation policy would be passed on to him to carry. ■ “ One matter I did not mention at the public meeting to-day,” said the mayor, “ was the inequality of Mr Coates’s exchange inflation policy. Under it the farmers, no matter what their resources, are going to get a benefit at the expense of others. It is well known from figures available in certain financial quarters that there are a large number of New Zealand farmers who have on deposit -sums of £IO,OOO, £20,000, £50,000, and more; and yet these people are going to get a bonus at the expense of those unfortunate individuals who are without anything.