THE AUSTRALIAN CRISIS.
A good feature of the past week has been the moderate rally in Australian Government securities. The crisis through which Australia is now passing can scarcely be one of brief duration, for the causes responsible for the crisis have been nwnerous, and the country is now paying the penalty of excessive capital expenditure, much of which has been for unproductive purposes, and also for a long period of Labour legislation which has resulted in the establishment of an uneconomic wage and generally high costs of production. Nevertheless, it is to the good that at last there seems to be something like a clear recognition by the authorities of those facts. In the course of his Budget speech Mr. Scullin frankly acknowledged the excessive borrowing of Australia during recent years and, indeed, went to the length of carefully pointing out the fact that as a consequence the stocks of the Australian Governments and States had over a period of the last eighteen months fallen far more heavily than those of New Zealind or of South Africa.
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