AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 874, 10 May 1909, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

[BY UiBOTBIO TBLIGBAPH— OOPYBIGHT. [?Hl PRBBB ASSOCIATION.] OBITUARY. Sydney. May 9. Obituary — Mr Kendall. Sydney ma nager for the Huddart Parker Steam. ship Company. Also Rev. Dr. Moulton, a , well known Methodist missionary, forinerlj "of Tonga, aged 69. (Received May 10, 9.30 a.m.) The widow of the late Sir Graham Berry died yesterday. SHIPPING. Sydney » May 10. Sailed— Wimbledon, for Auckland. Newcastle, May 10. — Moorabool and Wanaka, foi Wellington; Selwyn Craig, for Auckland. FEDERAL NOTE ISSUE. Melbour.no May 9. In tho new proposals for" the Federal note issue the Premier, the Hon. A. D. Fisher, takes it as his basis that the Commonwealth will absorb about four millions, 25 per cent, to be retained by the Treasury ias balance against demand for cash, and the rest he proposes to invest. He estimates that 3 or 3J per cent, of the the three millions will produce a revenue of 100,000 per year. Mr Fisher is. qonsiaeriug whether, as an additional reserve against the notes in case of panic, there should not be Treasury bills, which might be issued up to 50 per cent, of the total for securing cash in case of necessity. 1 A portion of the above scheme was 1 enunciated by Mr Fisher in his policy speech at Gympie, on which the Sydney Morning Herald commented : "His dream is a Commonwealth note issue— to take the place, we must assume, of the note issues of the private banks. The banks' • note issue aggregates some £3,500,000. By appropriating fchisj Mr 1 : Fisher calculates that he will bring into the. Commonwealth Treasury, say, £100,---000 per annum net. If he does so, if he gets that revenue, he will only bo doing it by an operation which is equivalent to a forced loan of £3,---500,000—and we had thought that anything savouring of a loan was hateful to Mr Fisher and his party. The ,p6sition is simply this: If Mr Fisher nroposes to issue notes to the value of £3;500 000 and hold gold against them, as the banEs have to do now, he will make, no £100,000, because he will have to pay the interest on the gold held. If, on the other hand (as seems to be the idea), pound for pound is not to be held in gold, the notes will run the 1 risk of depreciation, which will be % greivous wrong to ,those who 1 happen to hold them for value given, and there may conceivably be a widespread vitiation of currency. For the Commonwealth to start tamper- • ing with the currency is to embark upon a whole sea of troubles, the end of which it would take a wiser head that Mb Fisher's %to foresee."