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romarked is to meet the special expenditure connected with the resumption of the Naval Arsenal; a scheme which has already received the approval of this Council. Apart from this item we are able to present a balanced budget though not without much travail. The depreciated dollar has made the balancing of the budget a cause of grave anxiety to the Government. Oprepralini nary efforts left us with a heavy deficit, and when it came to pruning down the expenditure to close the gap, we found that our reductions would so reduce the efficiency of our administration that an increase of taxation was the less of two evils. It was for this reason that the Government decided a fortnight ago to impose certain now Taxes which are estimated to produce a gross increase of some $2,190,000 in the rev enuo. The Government also hopes to introduce before the end of the present year a Betting Tax estimated to bring in some $250,000.
The se new Taxes have been specially chosen, the petrol tax as being one which will be so widely diffused as to have a barely appreciable effect on the cost of living, and the others as being luxury taxes falling most heavily on those best able to afford them. I trust that the Council, bearing in mind the paramount obligation for a balanced budget, will concur with the Government both in the necessity for the further taxation and in the choice of the methods adopted to meet it.
The additional revenue thus to be obtained enabled the Government to reconsider certain items of expenditure, and,as the result of this final re confideration, ve were able to increase
some of the reduced maintenance votes of the Public Works
Department, to improve the Education grants, to improve the Fire Brigade equipment and to begin the building of a new magistracy
for
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