£1,018,000,000

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17154, 2 October 1926, Page 18

£1,018,000,000

AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL DEBT 'ST AGO BRING PIG UR ES ‘SYDNEY, Sept. A!. Latest figures on Australia’s national debt —staggering totals, too—were elicited this week at the .federal Arbitration Court, when a representative of the Common wealth Statistician’s Ollice gave evidence in connection, with the application for a universal forty-four hour week. He had been preparing tables with regard to the national debt, and the debts of the various States. The Commonwealth debt at June JO, .11)25, as revealed by the “Finance Bulletin,” was £40.1,000,00(1, made up as follows: £14(5,000,000 floated in London, £274,000,000 floated in Australia, and £13,000,000 transferred properties from the States. On these sums the annual interest bill is £21,73.3,000. And of that sum, £7,400,000 is payable in London, £13,044,000 payable in Australia, and £OBO,OOO interest on transferred properties. „ . Against these colossal figures the Commonwealth assets are the value of the Commonwealth railways, land, buildings, and other property, estimated: at £20,000,000. In addition to that tangible asset, there is, of course, the much greater intangible asset, of the taxable power of the Commonwealth. The total indebtedness of the States to .Tune 30, 3925, was £587,000,000 That, added 1o the Commonwealth figure, brings the national debt of Australia to £1,108,000,000. The aggregate of the State interest bill is £27,408,000, and the effective average interest is for the Common* wears £5 0s lOd, and for the States £4 IDs lid. On the brighter side, the witness told the Court that both sheep and cattle- had increased since 1919, the ligures having risen from 70,000,000 to 93,000,000. One table gives the number of sheep carried in Australia in .1890 as 98,000,000. This is the highest figure on record, and has never been reached since.