SHORTAGE OF MONEY

Otago Witness, Issue 3061, 13 November 1912, Page 25

SHORTAGE OF MONEY

retrenchment in new south WALES. SYDNEY, November 5. Owing to a shortage of money, the Railway Commissioner has been instructed to rearrange his Estimates, reducing them by over a million. This will not interfere with railway works proper, but many proposed improvements and alterations will be shelved. The Government’s predicament as the result of its shortage of money has produced further wholesale dismissals. Five hundred employees of the Water Board have been dismissed, and the board, which has expended £BO,OOO during the past four months, has been informed that only £75,000 is available for the remaining eight months of the year. Possibly another 500 dismissals will be necessary. The employees at present total 2000. November 6. The discharge of the Water Board employees means the stoppage of a number of works, and serious interference with building operations in the outer suburbs. Owing to slackness of work at the Garden Island naval yard, 200 men have been dismissed, and the curtailment of the Murmmbidgee irrigation works will involve the displacement of a large number. The secretary of the Water Board Employees’ Union declares that if 1000 men are* dismissed it will cause a revolution. Mr M'Gowen stated in the Assembly that he was not aware that the men were being dismissed owing to the strain on the finances.