THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, October 14, 1941. "BAD DEBTS, IRRECOVERABLE"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24737, 14 October 1941, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, October 14, 1941. " BAD DEBTS, IRRECOVERABLE"

A schedule of the Appropriation Bill, now before Parliament, shows the amounts that have been written off by State departments during the year because they represent debts due to the Crown that are irrecoverable or the value of stores lost, broken, or deficient or other losses that have been incurred by the Government. In all, a loss of as much as £376,240 is indicated. It would be odd if there were not great differences between the amounts of the losses suffered by the various departments. A few departments seem, in fact, to have been very fortunate in their business relations with the public. The losses on the part of the Customs, Education and. Printing and Stationery Departments, for instance, were purely nominal, not amounting in any case to more than a few shillings. The. Commercial Broadcasting Service claims, also, to have incurred a minimum amount of bad debts, but, as it has written off £647 due by advertisers who are described as unfinancial, the claim seems to be unsubstantial. At the other end of the scale comes, surprisingly enough, the Land and Income Tax Department, the department whose attentions many people, who would dodge them if they could, find it most difficult to escape. But, even as Homer is said to have sometimes nodded, the Taxation Department must confess to an occasional relaxation of its vigilance, for it has written off a sum of no less than £53,115. Its explanation of this-*-" debtors left New Zealand, etc."—suggests that the loss, except perhaps in so far as 'it is accounted for by the "etc.," was not recently incurred. It cannot readily be believed that the persons whom the Government and the Reserve Bank between them have permitted, in inconsiderable numbers, to leave the Dominion during the past two years, have included many, possessed of sufficient skill to outwit the taxcollector in any appreciable degree. The Treasury ranks next to the Taxation Department in the list of disappointed State creditors. A sum of more than £ 12,000, principal and interest of loans made by it under various designations, including one sum of £2613 advanced to a Control Board, has been found by it to be irrecoverable. While the Internal Affairs Department has made few bad debts, it is unfortunate in the respect that the Government's investment in the shares of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Company involving a book loss—but, of course, only a book loss—of £30,949, is debited to it. The Lands and Survey Department, besides suffering : heavy losses on realisation of securities on which advances had been made, has written, off £6310 for irrecoverable debts. Not even the most newly created departments have avoided losses. The Social Security Department has made payments of benefits in excess of the sums payable to the extent of £2283, and has been unable to recover them, and the State Advances Department, which administers the housing scheme, has already had the experience that rents to the amount of £1475 are irrecoverable, and it has also remitted rents to the amount of £SOO. Scattered rather thickly through the schedule of losses are items which are described as "nugatory expenditure." The adjective seems to be ill-chosen and inappropriate. WHOSE SEA? The description of the treatment to which British aircraft have subjected a heavily-escorted Italian convoy in the Mediterranean is a reminder of the constant struggle that is being waged in what Signor Mussolini used whimsically to refer to as "mare nostrum." It might have been imagined that in the narrow waters of the Mediterranean, and particularly in the vicinity of the Pantelleria passage between Sicily and Tunisia, where this latest engagement apparently occurred, the Axis would have all the advantages; It is, indeed, a German boast, though one not repeated recently, that divebombers operating from Sicilian bases could utterly close this 60mile bottleneck, thus preventing British ships from traversing the Mediterranean. That claim has been entirely discredited. The experience of a British convoy, which was the subject of a report in our news. columns yesterday, in running the gauntlet of enemy attackers for two days, with the loss of only one ship, proves that the Mediterranean remains open. Earlier messages described the naval support on this occasion as " huge," and it is known that one capital ship, Nelson, and an aircraft carrier, were among the escorting vessels. It may be deduced, therefore, that the Mediterranean route is being used by the British only for the conveyance of important supplies. The significant fact is that it is practicable to use it if required, while the Germans and Italians are having the utmost difficulty in traversing the narrow stretch of water by which Libya must be supplied. The Cairo correspondent of the Manchester Guardian made a recent estimate that as high as 80 per cent, of the Axis convoys between Italy and Libya are failing to reach their destination, and the latest convoy to venture out has, through attack by aircraft alone, suffered the loss or crippling of three out of four vessels. The supply of merchant shipping in the Mediterranean available to the Axis cannot be inexhaustible, and its problem of keeping lines of communication to Libya open must be

to it a cause of increasing worry. Not only are ships exposed to British air and naval attack during the crossing, but the Libyan ports «are under practically continuous attention from the air, as are the extended land communications across Libya. The effect of these operations by land and sea upon the Middle Eastern situation cannot be sensational, especially as Signor Mussolini's navy continues to evade engagement, but they must undoubtedly be proving more than an embarrassment to the Axis.