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 undertaken
 schemes of development with the best intentions and motives
they have, we believe, undertaken them without adequate preliminary
 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 unsatisfactory
 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.