15 
Causes of 
anprofitable 
sxpenditure. 
Che Murray 
River 
Scheme. 
Australia, a large proportion may have to be written off as lost; 
or when we are told that of the irrigable land made available 
by the Murrambidgee Scheme only about one-third is being used 
for its intended purpose, and that only a fraction of the interest 
allocable to that one-third is being received, we cannot avoid the 
apprehension that a very heavy and permanent load is being laid 
1pon the community. 
20. Among the causes which have led to unprofitable expenditure 
we are led by much evidence that we have received to believe 
that an important element is the undertaking of schemes, such as 
railway schemes, under the pressure of section interests, without 
due regard to their financial and economic justification, that is 
fo say, without due regard to the interests of the community as 
a whole. 
21. Further, in some cases where Governments have under- 
taken schemes of development with the best intentions and motives 
they have, we believe, undertaken them without adequate pre- 
liminary investigation and without sufficient use and co-ordination 
of the expert scientific and technical knowledge which might 
have been made available to them from the resources of their 
own departments. We have, for instance, come across cases 
where an area has been laid out for an irrigation scheme without 
a preliminary soil survey to make sure of the suitability of the 
ground for the purposes for which the irrigation has been provided. 
Again, where schemes have been undertaken which should have 
mvolved the co-operation of more than one State, as, for example, 
the scheme involving the use of the waters of the Murray River, 
they have been started without such co-operation and without a 
combined survey of the probable markets for the produce which 
it was contemplated would result from the use of the waters. 
The authorities concerned, namely, the Governments of New 
South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Commonwealth, 
are indeed now striving in concert with one another to rectify the 
past; but their difficulties, which are undoubtedly great, would 
have been less if there had been combined investigation by them 
all of the possibilities of the scheme and of its probable financial 
results, in the light of a co-ordination of all the expert and scientific 
knowledge available to them, before any considerable expenditure 
was incurred by any of them. . 
22. The Murray River Scheme is indeed a good illustration of 
the causes which have led to much of what we feel to be unsatis- 
factory in the present position of Australia as regards her public 
debt. As we understand it, there is at present no intention of 
proceeding further with the original plan for the construction of 
locks; and the weirs which have been made are to be used for 
irrigation purposes, the existing locks serving to allow local river 
transport to pass between them.