Financial Notes
AUSTRALIAN ESTATES.
THOSE who would obtain some idea of the extent to which pastoral conditions in Australia can be affected by droughts, or of how the profits of pastoral companies can be determined by movements in the price of wool, will do well to peruse the speech of Mr. Andrew Williamson, recently delivered to shareholders of the Australian Estates and Mortgage Company. During the year the profits of that Company have suffered a material reduction, in spite of every care being exercised. There has been a material set-back in the price of wool, while serious droughts have also exerted an adverse influence. Some idea of the effect of wool prices upon the value of Australia's exports may be gathered from the fact that although the quantity exported for the year ending June, 1985, was 2,855,357 bales, as compared with 2,741,119 bales in the previous year, the value of the 1935 exports was only £39,260,000 against £57,111,000 for the previous year. Moreover, the Australian pastoral companies have, of course, also been severely hit by the burden of taxation. Mr. Williamson made an earnest appeal to the Government of Queensland to remedy certain glaring injustices of her income taxation. It appears that business losses are only allowed as a set-off against subsequent profits to a maximum amount of £1,000 a year for five years. In the case of a pastoral company losing, as it easily might, during periods of drought, £100,000 in one or two years, the only allowance as a set-,off would be £5,000 in all.
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