AUSTRALIA CAUTIOUS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 904, 22 February 1930, Page 9

AUSTRALIA CAUTIOUS

FEWER BORROWINGS AND LOANS CURTAILED PROGRAMME CANBERRA, Friday. The Federal Loan Council has decided to reduce the expenditure of ’loan money during the next half year to half the normal amount. Instead of the £43,000,000 which was borrowed last year, and which has been the average for the last four years, the council has decided on heavy reductions, which will bring the rate of loan expenditure down to £22,000,000. The Federal Treasurer, Mr. E. G. Theodore, stated that in the current year about £10.000,000 of sinking fund money is being used for the redemption of debts in Australia and overseas. He also announced that the public debt of the Commonwealth, including the States, is now £1,116,834,298, as against £1,104,029,265 at June 30, 1929. When the Loan Council, met at Canberra last May, the States alone submitted programmes requiring about £ 37,000,000. The council was then informed that the total amount of new money that could be borrowed for the financial year ending June 30, 1930, should not exceed £30.000,000. Later the council resolved to confine its borrowing to £28,000,000. The Loan Council has already issued £20,000,000 in new loans this year, comprising two issues of £ 5,000,000 of Treasury bills in London and the recent £10,000,000 loan in Australia.