700 MILLIONS FOR YEAR

Grey River Argus, 11 May 1944, Page 5

700 MILLIONS FOR YEAR

AUSTRALIAN WAR LOANS. SYDNEY, May 10. The closing of Australia’s £150,000,000 First Victory Loan has been extended from last night until Friday night. Yesterday a shortage of £lO,000,000 was required to be made up, but the latest reports indicate that the loan is going well despite earlier anxiety. With the close of the First Victory Loan Australia will have contributed £700,000,000 to loans for the present war. The first loan for £20,000,000 was filled in three days. Three-quarters of the total loan money has been raised in the past 18 months. No Australian loan has cost more than 5s per £lOO compared with £1 per £lOO in some i Allied countries. In the first World War Australian loans totalled only £180,000,000. U.S.A. DEBT. WASHINGTON, May 8. The United States House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee has approved a Bill increasing the national debt limit of 210,000,000,000 to 240,000,000,000 dollars. This is 20,000,000,000 dollars below the limit recommended b v the Treasury. Mr. Daniel Bell, Under Secretary to the Treasury said that the total public debt was expected to be 197,000000,000 dollars by June 30. He forecast that the public debt would be 235,000,000,000 dollars by the end of this year and 268,000,000,000 dollars by June 30 of next year.