HEADING TO RUIN?

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1924, Page 6

HEADING TO RUIN?

AUSTRALIAN PESSIMIST. WOES OF THE FARMERS. London, Feb. 23. Australia is undoubtedly steering for bankruptcy, says Mr. S. W. Copley, banker, and formerly a West Australian pastoralist. She must cut her administrative costs and enormously reduce her national debt, which should not be greater than £5O a head. She must remove restrictive legislation on working and trading hours, and turn many civil servants on to the land. She must give the farmers a square deal by reducing taxation and lowering the tariff on what ‘they require, as well as a better chance of buying their goods in the same market as that in which they sell their produce. All the energies of the farmers to-day, says Mr. Dopley, are sacrificed to civil servants and to townspeople, and until the position is reversed Australia cannot develop on. sound lines. Since 1875 Australia, he says, has paid more in interest than the present national debt. When reorganised financially she could pay her debts easily, and future loans could be raised in the country, so that it would not be necessary to pay interest abroad.