AUSTRIAN BUDGET.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 16, 16 December 1932, Page 9

AUSTRIAN BUDGET.

GOVERNMENT’S SANGUINE EXPECTATIONS. Tlio Austrian Federal Budget for 1933, which is balanced at the high level of £57,000,000 and is made to show a surplus of £6617, gives rise to apprehensions (says a Vienna correspondent) . Both public expenditure and revenue from monopolies and State utilities are regarded as estimated in too optimistic a spirit. Revenue from tobacco, salt, and explosives, which are steadily finding lower levels, is, seemingly without justification, expected to produce better results, while the hugs deficit of £753,623 incurred by the Postal Department is even to become a stand-by. In an equally sanguine spirit foes and taxes, which are increasing the daily toll of bankruptcies and pointing a lesson not to be ignored, are expected to yield £1,014,490 more than in 1932. Good judges of the situation fear that the expected surplus of £6617 will turn out to bo a deficit of not less than £3,250,000, while economic experts state their belief in the necessity of a reduction of expenditure by anything up to £10,000,000. Of course, this presupposes the abolition of amalgamation of superfluous administrative departments and a ruthless reduction of staffs. Hitherto, it is asserted, Governments have invariably shrunk from superannuating the heads of State departments because of the impression this step might create in the ranks of the old bureaucracy.. On the expenditure side of the Budget £376,810 is allotted for the service of the Lausanne international loan, payment of which is expected to be met before next spring. Provision is likewise made for the first time for interest payable to the Austrian National Bank on obligations assumed by the Government on behalf of the Credit Anstalt. For the service of the other debts of the State £6,130,434 will have *to be found. Savings in administrative costs are spread over the majority of departments of State, including the police force and Austrian representation abroad. • Nevertheless, the total expenditure under the head of “central administration” figures at £35,101,449. The railway department is again not expected to earn enough to provide for the sendee of the capital outlay of previous years furnished by the Government, or for the pensions of former employees of the department, for which it became liable when the department was “commercialised” some years ago. A grant of £2,810,000 is being sot aside in the State Budget for this purpose. On tlio revenue side a falling off amounting to £695,000 is expected in Customs, resulting from the restrictions placed on foreign imports. Social relief and its administration, so far as they are covered by the State will claim £8,492,752, or £870,000 more than last year, when, however, the number of the unemployed was smaller on the average, by 35,000 a month! Only £175,000 is being appropriated to productive investments.