Out, Fiji

With Copra Tax

Now Faces Deficit

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Suva. Dec. 20.

IN contrast with last month’s alarums and excursions, the resumption and conclusion of Fiji’s extraordinary Legislative Council Budget session to-day was entirely quiet, and wound up in a welter of Christmas cordialities.

In a short introductory address, the Governor (Sir Brian Freeston) said that an immediate result of the hurricane was that the Copra Tax Bill must be with drawn from further consideration at this session. He expressed sympathy with those who had suffered by the hurri cane.

The Governor said that by the removal from the Revenue Estimates for 1949 of the £lOO,OOO anticipated to result from the Copra Tax, the Government had been faced with a very heavy prospective de ficit.

The reduction in the Expenditure Esti mates amounts to £67,000 in all.

On the revenue side, the following is a list of the additional amounts which it was hoped to raise during 1949 under existing heads of revenue, i.e. without im posing any new measure of taxation:—

The Budget, as now recast, envisages a deficit of not more than £lB,OOO.

Reduced from £3,000,759 to £2,933,920, the Budget was passed without further amendment Mr. “Bobby” Gibbes, the popular owner of Sepik Airways, New Guinea, has just added a new Norseman aircraft to his fleet. There was a large gathering to greet him when he made his first land ing in the Norseman in Lae.

Trading Licences £2,000 Stamp Duty Death and Gift Duties . £2,500 Reimbursements, Fiji Leprosy Hospital Government Currency £10,000 Sundries £23.500