AN AGREEABLE CONTRAST.
The Australian Budget for 1937-8 and the results for the past financial year make a pleasant contrast with the conditions of some five or six years ago, when Australia was passing through her severe exchange crisis. In his Budget speech last week, the Treasurer, the Hon. R. G. Casey, was able to say that Australia is now enjoying a higher level of material prosperity than has ever been experienced in the history of the country. Production has increased. Unemployment is diminished, real wages are higher, savings bank deposits have reached record levels, while the overseas trade position has also greatly improved. For the past year there was a realised surplus of £1,276,000, and there is a small estimated surplus for the current year. If only in view of the fact that the election time is drawing near in Australia, the Treasurer—or, as we should say in this country, the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer—was no doubt justified in emphasising the great improvement which has taken place in Australia during the past six years. Moreover, there will be many in this country who will consider that Mr. Casey was not only justified, but was wise, in emphasising the events of the past six years, for there can be no question that Australia's wonderful recovery from the years of depression, while it has been aided by the rise in commodity prices, has been due to the courage of the Austra- lian . people, led by a wise Government who, in the years of depression, refused to listen to the counsels of those Socialist extremists who would have pursued a policy calculated to be detrimental to the credit of Australia.
* * * *
Previous page
