Fiji’S Credit.
p. 38 · Read in the full issue
Figures Show Why It Stands High In London.
From Our Own Correspondent.
Suva, Oct. 4.
THE Governor, Sir Murchison Fletcher, put before the Legislative Council, on October 3, his report on the state of the Colony’s finances. It showed that the estimated deficit for 1932 is £12,000. The estimated revenue for 1933 is £568,350 and expenditure £554,132.
Regarding conditions generally in the Colony, the Governor forecast record crops of sugar. Up-to-date in 1932, the production was 130,000 tons, twice the 1931 output. Copra was again on a paying basis, the estimated output for 1933 being a third in excess of the 1932 production.
In a budget of round about £550,000, this deficit for 1932 of £12,000 is a trifle, which should be recovered two or three times over in 1933.
Those of us who live in Fiji and whose boundary is Suva wharf, some times find difficulty in distinguishing the wood from the trees. The true financial position is measured more ac curately in London where, within the last couple of months, the Fiji Govern ment decided to raise portion of the balance of the Colonial Loan author ised to be issued. Fiji obtained money at £102 at 4 per cent. —a really extra ordinary demonstration of the high esteem in which the Colony’s finances are regarded in the centre of the finan cial universe.