The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 12, 1927.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 January 1927, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 12, 1927.

AUSTRALIAN” I'TXAXC'KS. It is suggested .Mr Bruce, Prime .Minister of the Commonwealth, has his eyes open while in the I'nited States with regard to possible iinaneiul arrangements. This appears 7 to he in keeping with the policy of Air Lang, the Labor Premier of New South Wales, who hud his loan proposals recently before Parliament. I'nder his policy he asks the right to place loans ‘‘in such countries or cities’’ as the Clocernor-in-Council may direct.” and he justifies this innovation on the ground that ‘‘the London money market is not as sympathetic as it might be to any Dominion or colonial borrowing.” As to the reasons for this coy reluctance on the part of the money market, Ah' Lang apparently said little, hut characteristically enough, he let the Mouse and the rest of the world into the secret when almost in the same breath he proclaimed the necessity for the establishment of a sinking fund. Air Lang produces this sinking fund expedient as if it wore an original invention, to be credited entirely to bis financial ingenuity. The fact is that not only Air Bavin and the Opposition, but all other competent critics. whether friends or foes, of Air Lang, have been for years past urging the Lahmir Government to take this obvious and indispensable step. The various states of the Commonwealth are heavily in debt, but few people realise how little they have done to prepare for the ultimate liquidation of their liabilities. Xew South Wales is not only by far the heaviest borrower in the list, but it also holds the record for the miseroseopic size of its sinking fund, even when compared with such financially weak and discredited States as Queensland and Tasmania. The figures, as they -appear in the Commonwealth Year Book for 1020, are well worthy of consideration. Strange to say. West Australia holds the palm for careful finance, for. with a gross debt of £G3.(100,000 she has accumulated over £0.000,000 of sinking fund. South Australia owes £70.000.000 and has a sinking fund of £2,000.000. Victoria owes £124.000,000 and has a sinking fund of £3.000.000. Tasmania owes £24.000.000 and has saved £1.000.000 to meet the bill ; and Queensland, with a gross debt of over £00.000,000 has about £1.000,000 in reserve for the same purpose. Above all those figures. New South Wales towers high in lonely splendour, with a gross public debt of al>ont £224.000.000 and n sinking fund of less than half a million! What further explanation is required to interpret the diffidence of the London money market, and its failure to respond to Air Lang’s appeals? And I what further argument is needed to I

sustain tho charges of incapanify and folly levelled by Mr Bavin at the Labour Government's financial policy? As to the proposal to borrow in America, it is quite possible that Mr Lang lias never considered the industrial and commercial effects of the great inrush of American goods that would inevitably follow, and the sacrifice of Australian and British interests that such a policy would sooner or later entail.