FINANCE IN AUSTRALIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21359, 12 June 1931, Page 6

FINANCE IN AUSTRALIA.

Relief, in many cases clouded with personal apprehensions, will be felt in Australia now that the proposals of the Commonwealth and State Governments for reducing the deficits for the next financial year, ending in June, 1932, have been matured. For the financial year that is drawing to a close there will be enormous deficits, totalling more than thirty millions, and so great has thd disparity between revenues and expenditure become in the Commonwealth that serious deficits are inevitable in 1932. A reduction of 20 per cent, in expenditure and the prospective saving upon a “ voluntary ” loan conversion are relied upon to reduce next year’s deficits to some £15,000,000. The Federal Government anticipates that it will be able to effect savings to the extent of nearly eight millions and to raise eight and a-half millions by fresh taxation. The Government of New South Wales will budget for “ savings ” to the extent of over six millions. So far from balancing expenditure with income, these economies will leave substantial deficits. That of the Federal Government is estimated at £4,380,000, while Mr Lang, who seems to be determined to keep on creating records, is prepared for a deficit in 1932 of £5,410,000. It cannot, be said of Mr Lang, however, that he has not been diligent, in some directions,, in his search for economies that might be effected. The Federal Government hopes to save £1,700,000 by salary reductions, and the State of New South Wales is not far behind with an estimate of savings of £1,300,000, through reduced payments to State officials. Mr Lang appears to have reached this figure by the very simple method of deciding that no Government official in New South Wales is entitled to receive more than £SOO a year, and he has avowed an intention to limit all salaries to that amount. As a just Premier he makes no exceptions. The maximum salary of £SOO or less will be paid impartially to the Governor of the State, to judges, members of Parliament, and to all persons holding statutory appointments. In ox*der to show that, if his estimate of their worth in pounds, shillings, and pence is low, his opinion of their sense of patriotism to the State is high, Mr Lang does not propose rudely to reduce the salaries of the Governor, the judges, and other officials by legislation, but to put the more highly paid servants of the State on their honour, as it were, themselves to reduce their salaries to his maximum figure. Consequently, when the Chief Justice, for instance, is paid his salary of £3500, he will, it is assumed, gladly hand back £3OOO of it to the Treasury, and make shift to live on the balance for the good of the State. But if a “ strong appeal to their patriotism ” does not convince the more highly-paid officials in New South Wales that they should accept salary reductions up to some 80 per cent., then Mr Lang is prepared to persuade them by legislative enactment. Were it not for the faoj; that Mr Lang has previously given the people of New South Wales reason to know that when his intentions seem most ludicrous they are most serious, his scheme might be well regarded as a bad joke. As it is, he seems desirous of living up to his reputation as a political desperado. Few would seek to deprive the Socialist of his dreams of a Utopian State wherein every man would share equally, if meagrely, in the profits of toil, regardless of the nature of the work of each as an individual. But even Mr Lang might be expected to realise that these are dreams. New South Wales is, as the balance sheets disclose, more of a wilderness than a Utopia at the present time, and Mr Lang, as his past irresponsibilities have shown, is not the prophet who will transform it.