STATE ENTERPRISE IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18802, 3 March 1923, Page 17

STATE ENTERPRISE IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

END OF THE TRAWLERS. (From Ona Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, February 22. For years great sums of the New South Wales taxpayers’ money has literally been thrown into the sea. 2ho best that can be said of the State trawling industry is that is has very completely demonstrated the inferiority of a Government undertaking to private enterprise for trading purposes. Thus it is that the groat majority of the taxpaying public is rejoicing that the State Government has decided to do the right thing and to close down the trawling industry at the end of this month. The losses disclosed for the past month average nearly £IOOO a week, and the benefits, it any. to accrue from continuing the business until the sale of the plant is purely problematical and involves risks which no business man would take. The accumulated loss to the end of this month is expected to total £212.976. But the Government does not intend to stop at the trawling industry. Other industrial undertakings which emerged from the of socialism and extravagance which had marked the government of the State during recent years have been under critical review. The State Timber Yards, for instance, must go. The accumulated losses on this particular undertaking amount to more than a quarter of a million sterling. The Acting Premier was, if anything, under-slating the case when he observed last week that if the yards had been given away free a few years ago the State to-day would bo bettor off by thousands of pounds.