MR LANG FACES BIG DEFICIT FOR YEAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19239, 28 November 1930, Page 1

MR LANG FACES BIG DEFICIT FOR YEAR.

WILL STOP DRIFT IF IT IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. SYDNEY, November 27. In the Legislative Assembly, the Premier and Treasurer, Mr J. T. Lang, sought £13,248,240 supply for four months. “We are faced with a most embarrassing position,” he said. “We owe by way of overdraft, immediately maturing advances, and local Treasury Bills £11,798,537 sterling. If the London Treasury Bills due on December 31 and March 2 be added, our total obligations amount to the staggering sum of £15,342,789.’* Mr Lang declared that the Government were determined to stop the drift if it was humanly possibly to do so, irrespective of whom it offended. He estimated that the net deficit for the year 1930-31 would amount to £7,784,612. It seemed impossible to bridge that deficiency in the current financial year, but every effort would be made to do so.

MR LANG EXPLORING EVERY AVENUE. MAY LEGALISE GAMBLING TO PRODUCE REVENUE. SYDNEY. November 21. With the return of a Labour Government on such an overwhelming vote, it was only natural to expect that some radical moves would follow their accession to office in New South Wales. The position of this State is bound up, of course, with the fortunes of the Federal Government in the search for money to carry on. The Premier, Mr Lang, made some fulsome promises to the electors, and they are now clamouring for the fulfilment of some of them. Constitutional lawyers all agree that, in ordinary circumstances, Mr Lang cannot borrow outside the Loan Council. The first radical move is the Cabinet decision to establish in this State a lottery on the lines of Tattersall’s consultation. This, it is claimed, will relieve the Government of the annual burden of its contributions to hospitals. The New South Wales State lottery will be purely a Government enterprise, and already there is a rumble of drums from the camps of those opposed to gambling. Since the Labour Government went out of office three years ago, the “tin” hare coursing boom has languished, but it is certain that in its search for revenue the present Cabinet will legalise night betting on “tin” hares, and that a second gambling venture be called upon to produce some of the cash necessary to fulfil some of the election promises. £20,000,000 Loan Scheme. New South Wales being unable to borrow directly as a Government, because the Loan Council has agreed again that the Budgets must be bal- ® e m ® s m eb ee si m a a m ® m m m si si m \

anced, there is a move afoot to reconstitute the Public Works Department as a board with borrowing powers similar to those the Water Board now holds. The Constitution is so framed that while the State cannot borrow directly, its instrumentalities are comparatively unrestricted. In this respect the Government is credited with h scheme to take the unemployment relief tax of £3,000,000 a year, and set it aside as an interest repayment on a loan of, say, £20,000,000, borrowed through the reconstituted Works Department. This, its advocates declare, would provide better and more useful employment for the unemployed army, and would be sufficient to start a small sinking fund. The latest announcement touching the .financial position is that the Government intends, in line with election promises, to declare a moratorium before Christmas. By this .means home purchasers, time-payment buyers of furniture and other essentials that would be brought within the scope of the necessary Bill, would be protected where it could be shown that their default was through circumstances over which they had.no control.. Starting-Price Shops. Any suggestion that Australians are not a nation of gamblers would be refuted by the report of yet another avenue through which the Government proposes to get revenue—the licensing of starting-price betting shops, of which there are thousands in the State. In its desperate search for money, the Labour Cabinet is exploring every suggestion. Meantime the unemployed list is growing so alarmingly that the Federal Cabinet threatens to split unless some concrete scheme -to relieve the position, which is just as bad in other States as in New South Wales, is reached and put into effect before Parliament adjourns.

BENEVOLENT SOCIETY ASK STATE HELP. (Received November 28, 11.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, November 28. The directors of the Benevolent Society of New South Wales told the Minister of Health, Mr J. M’Girr, that the society was facing a serious financial crisis, with an overdraft of nearly £30,000, which the bank was demanding should be reduced. They asked the Government to pay £7905, which the society should normally have recei\*ed last July. AUSTRALIA SHOULD BEWARE OF INFLATION. (Received November 28, 11.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, November 28. Manager of the Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris and vice-president of the French Chamber of Commerce, M. A. Spitzer has arrived in Sydney. He said that Australia had bright prospects of raising money abroad when Mr J. H. Scullin arrived in England, but the actions of the extreme wing of the Labour Party had done much to destroy the country’s credit. France had learnt her lesson regarding \ inflation. The advantages did not last very long and then the country would find itself in a worse state than before.