THE ECONOMY OF MR. LANG.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1931, Page 6

THE ECONOMY OF MR. LANG.

The Premier of New South Wales, MrJ. T. Lang, is nothing if not emphatic. A few months ago, when his fellow State Premiers and the Federal Government were beseeching him to realise that tho days of borrowing and spending lavishly were over, Mr. Lang teplied by reducing houvs of labour and restoring wages and salary cuts, lhe results of his wild finance were soon apparent. The State defaulted in interest payments to bondholders, and the Government Savings Bank was obliged to close its doors. The latter happening appears to have penetrated the settdelusion of Mr. Lang. Moreover, it affected the savings of the thrifty Labourite as well as of those who do not see a new heaven upon earth in Labour rule. So the Mr. Lang who treated former financial conferences of Premiers with contempt, lias attended the last m a repentant mood. With the fervour of the convert he has suggested the most drastic economy yet proposed. From the Governor downwards he proposes that no servant of the State shall receive a salary higher than £aoo a year. Even Judges of the Supreme Court, and presumably Ministers, are to be reduced to this level of pay, contracts and undertakings to pay more being apparently of little concern to the master mind of Mr. Lang. Still, he can show the Labour rank and file how he proposed to make “the other fellow pay,” and thus maintain wages and hours of work at uneconomic standards, for the Premier of New -South Wales knows his constituency and what is likely to be a good vote-catching device. Acceptance or otherwise of his proposals is, of course, a domestic concern of the State, but the friends of Australia will be glad to note that even so short-sighted a politician as Mr. Lang has been brought to realise the neceseity for a reduction in the costs of administration.