Increase in N.G's Revenue
p. 50 · Read in the full issue
A CCORDING to an official statement in ***■ the New Guinea Gazette of February 27 the public revenues of the Mandated Territory for the six months ended December 31 were £287,941, an increase of approximately £34,000 compared with the same period of 1935.
One naturally turns with interest to the details to ascertain the source of these rich revenues. But the New Guinea accounts are published in the style fol lowed in other places which simply means that they convey mighty little information. One naturally wants to know what sums are derived from the copra export tax and from the gold royalty. But all the official accounts show are: “Customs, £11,752; Mines, £69,845.” The copra export tax, presum ably, is included somewhere in “Customs”, and the gold royalty some where in “Mines.”
However, there is nothing to be gained by throwing bricks at the New Guinea Administration. The thing is typical of bureaucracy the world over.
Mr. Thomas Horne, managing director of Messrs. Walter Horne & Co. Ltd., Suva, arrived in Sydney by the March Monterey on a health-recruiting trip.