A Disappearing Surplus
p. 22 · Read in the full issue
Four years ago, the New Guinea Administration possessed a nest-egg surplus of some £60,000, mainly the result of buoyant revenues from the Morobe gold industry. To-day, that sur- Pl 1^ 8 ™ as keen whittled down to a trifling £6,000.
This was revealed in the comparative statement of revenue and expenditure of the Mandated Territory for the year ended June 30, 1941, published in Sep tember in the official New Guinea Gazette. Revenue amounted to £423,750 (a decrease of £86,270 on the previous year), and expenditure totalled £431,791 (down £73,143). The 1940 surplus was thus reduced from £14,022 to £5,981.
For some years now, critics have decried the NG Administration’s inability to level off expenditure and revenue and to trim sails in the cost of maintaining certain departments; the 1940-41 accounts merely provide them with further ammunition.
Dr. Dorothy Delbridge, of the Methodist Mission hospital at Ba, Fiji, will return to Australia shortly for furlough.
Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Bliss, of Sarang Plantation, Madang, arrived in Australia recently from New Guinea on furlough