Mr. S. M. Bruce, the Commonwealth Treasurer, has improved upon all his predecessors by delivering his Budget speech withia six weeks of the close of the financial year. It has come as a god-send, not only on account of what it has contained, but as spiking the guns of the Labour and Country parties in Parliament which have been attacking the Government on trumpery matters of detail, and making it quite easy for the country to be inadvertent ly plunged into the chaos of 2 general election. The Budget has astounded friends and foes, It shows that, on the actual figures of the year just past, instead of a Jebit balance of some £2,000,000, as anticipated by the late Treasurer, Sir Joseph Cook, who is now High Commissioner, there has' been a small surplus to add to the already accumulated surpluses amounting to over £8,000,000.
The new Treasurer, an experienced business man, but a perfect tyro in polities, has proved the wisdom of the Prime Minister, Mr. Hughes, when he offered him the vacant portfolio. Within a few days of the end of the financial year, June 30, he was able to give Parliament and the country a rough resume of the past 12 months' business of the Commonwealth, and within a month he placed. before the House of Kepresentatives the complete details, together with the estimates and policy of the Government for the present year, ending June, 1923. Briefly, despite all _forebodings, the past year more than paid its way, after allowing for some minor readjustments of taxation in favour of the taxpayers. This year he has so modestly calculated the increase of revenue, but so considerably reduced expenditure. that he expects a surplus of about half a million, and this will be secured while over £3,000,000 of taxation will be remitted.
Mr. Bruce argues that the duty of the Government is to take no more from the taxpayers than is necessary for the safe and orderly government of the country. He "has £6,000,000 in hand which was taken unnecessarily from the people, therefore he proposes to pay it back to them—not all at. once, but at least one—half this year and, he hopes, the rest next year. He -pays it back by the reduction of taxation, Hitherto it has been ustoiiary for the Commonwealth to. carry over these surpluses, thus bringing into one year the money held over from the last. The Treasurer now lays down th neral principle that each year's a budget must balance.
To appreciate how this sort. of iaikx has affected the community, one has but to remember the weeping and wailing of not only the press but.of many worthy and Wealthy financial leaders. We were told that Australia was overwhelmed with debt, ground down by taxation, her currency inflated, her commerce unproti able, and ker Government unrelable, inconsequent and doubtfully honest. It was only the other day that Senator irbairn, one of the principal pastoralists in Autralia, painted the future of the country in the gloomiest colours. To him the fact that the shearers yer only slowly accepting reduced wages, that there a war debt of over £300,000,0@) and that the cost of government remaining undiminished, spelt ruin to all concerned The newspapers have been equally insistent that we are on the road to financial chaos.
At the end of last June, the ex-exceeded the imports ' by £30,000,000, ihe currency is becoming deflated, and the urea hints that in the not stant future the prohibition of export of gold may be removed. The actual Commonwealth debt is only £341,000,000, and seeing that a few years ago the Commonwealth bad no public debt it is doubtless this sum which creates so much uneasiness in bosoms born to anticipate trouble. The—Austra-lion debt includes all debts—State and ral. It works out at £153 per head, whereas in 1915 the Australian census of private wealth within the Commonwealth was found to amount to £327. It is noteworthy that some at least of those who were crying ruin now declare that this comparison of indebtedness is as false as that of taxation made last year by Sir Joseph Cook when he very appolitely answered the vicarious cry of the taxpayers by pointing out that, whereas State and Federal ation in Australia amounted to £12.18.11 per head, taxation in New Zealand reached. £18.11.1 and in the United Kingdom £24.2.6. It is, however. a truism that some people cannot be happy unless they are miserable.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.