ECONOMIES.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14783, 13 October 1921, Page 4

ECONOMIES.

There can be no doubt at all that Mr Massey is starting at the right end when he sets out to reduce expenditure. He will place before Parliament proposals that will mean a saving of £2,000,000 a year, and as he states that already the economies effected will save a further £l,500,000, the gross saving should go a long way towards' making the national income meet the national expenditure. In the first five months of the current year the income showed a drop of £1,300,000, and the expenditure an increase of £1,600,000, an adverse movement totalling £2,-* 900,000 and as the revenue will probably continue to fall below last year’s level it is apparent that the expenditure must be cut severely in order to make things balance. ’ Until that is done and the expenditure brought within the national revenue by a good margin, the prospect of relief from the 'heavy burden of taxation cannot be entertained. Details of Mr Massey’s proposals will be awaited with interest, and by members of the public service with some anxiety, but, if, in such . a short period economies can be effected to the extent of £1,500,000 and a fur-

ther £2,000,000 can be lopped off ’“without serious hardship” it lends colour to the contention that there has been a terrible laxity in the control of Dominion affairs until the slump made these things inevitable.