MUST COPE WITH DRIFT AT ONCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 144, 19 June 1931, Page 1

MUST COPE WITH DRIFT AT ONCE.

MORE TAXES IMPOSED ON AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE.

(United Press Assn. —By Electric

Telegraph—Copyright.) CANBERRA, June IS.

The Prime Minister, Mr J. 11. Scullin, in moving the second reading of the Bill to approve of the financial agreement reached at the Premiers’ Conference, which covers the conversion loan plan, reviewed the whole history of Australian indebtedness. Australia had had no credit in London since September last, he said, and whatever new expenditure had arisen had been caused by world conditions. For example, adverse exchange was costing £10,000,000 a year; the unemployed in Australia numbered 360,000, the cost of their sustenance and relief being £9,000,000 a year. If no action were taken to cope with the drift this cost would be swollen to £L3,000,000 a j r ear. Immediate Econoir^.es. The Senate passed the Bill authorising the shipment of £5,000,000 in gold. In the House of Representatives, Mr E. G. Theodore, the Treasurer, announced that legislation would be introduced immediately, increasing the sales tax from 2\ per cent- to 5 per cent; primage duty from 4 per cent to 10 per cent; also increasing income tax. In was thus hoped to reduce the deficit from £20,000,000 to £4,500,000. The 20 per cent cuts would also be made withut delay in public servants’ salaries and ex-soldiers’ pensions, but due consideration would be given to indigent cases. Pensions would, in future, be denied to widows of soldiers who had re-married, also to the children of such re-marriages. Plan Opposed. It is not by any means certain that the plan arrived at by the Premiers’ Conference for the financial rehabilitation of Australia will be adopted. Recent events disclose a growing opposition on the part of Labour organisations in the eastern States to the plan, despite the earnest appeal by the Prime Minister to let it go through, in view of the danger of default and a complete stoppage of credit. It is asserted privately that a majority of the delegates to the special meeting of the Federal Labour Executive now sitting at Canberra is distinctly hostile to any reductions in salaries or pensions, and intends to urge a double dissolution or the fiduciary currency issue.

On the other hand, an unofficial statement made in Canberra to-day said that the Federal Government will in no circumstances deviate from its intention to give full effect to the Melbourne Conference plan. Complete endorsement of the plan has already been given by the Governments of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.

MAY BALANCE N.S.W. RAILWAYS BUDGET.

MR LANG EXPECTS MUCH FROM TRANSPORT BILL. (Received June 19, 11.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, June 19. Mr Lang made a forecast in the Assembly, when he gave the second reading of his speech of the Transport Bill, that the Act would, in a great measure, remedy the position into which the finances of the State had drifted. Drastic steps were needed, he pointed out, to balance the Budget of the railways, but he was confident that when the whole of the State’s transport services were co-ordinated the huge deficits of this department would be eliminated. The owners of private cars would be in no way affected by the Bill.