Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/457

 FINANCE — PRODUCTION AND INDUSTRY 405

private hospitals situated in Perth and suburbs as well as the principal goldfield towns ; five Protestant and three Roman Catholic orphanage industrial schools are partly supported by private su' md partly

out of public money. There are also nine native and half-caste institutions, six Industrial Schools supported in a similar manner, two Government native settlements at Carrolup and Moore River, and a third at Moola Bulla utilised as a cattle station, and one Government receiving d«5p5t for State children who aie after* to the various I: On

June 30, 1920. a total of 806 adults ami 1,^77 children ersons

in the State received monetary assistance from tiie public funds for \i and others.

Old Age and Invalidity Pensions are now paid by the Commonwealth Government. The number of pensioners in Western Australia at June 30, 1920, was :— old age, 4,791 ; invalid, 1,788 ; war pensioners 22,311.

Finance.

The revenue and expenditure of Western Australia in seven years, ended June 30, are given as follows : —

^MeSo 8,1 Revenue Ex ^l^J^ Avenue Eipen-liture

£ M *

1914 1 pre-war) 5.205,343 .4

mo. ..., •-- -,.20i

1917 1»H«. . ' 6,«W,4<M 7,ow,m

. ■■ < . 4 ■■■'.' • . - -" ■

1 Estimates.

More than two-fifths of the public income is derived from railways and tramways (2,463,135/. for the year ended June 30, 1920), and the rest mainly from various forms of taxation (844,197/. in 1919-20), lands, timber, and mining (408,800/.), water supply (336,456/.), other business and trading con- cerns (557,951/.), and the surplus returned to the State of the Commonwealth Revenue derived from Customs, Excise, Post Office, other receipts and interest on transferred properties (598,273/. for 1919-20). Western Australia had a net public debt of 39,990,825/. on June 30, 1920, the annnal charge for which was 2,062,035/. The amount of accrued sinking fund on March 31, 1920, was 6,831,178/.

For Defence, see under Commonwealth of Australia.

Production and Industry.

Large portions of the State, for some hundreds of miles inland, are hilly, and even mountainous, although the altitude, so far as ascertained, nowhere above that of Mount Bruce (4,024 ft. ) in the North West Division, or the Stilling Range (3,640 ft. ) in the South West. The greater part of the far interior may be described as a threat tableland, with an altitude of from one to two thousand feet above sea-level, the surface of which coi over large areas of sand-dunes, varied by wide stretches of clavey soils. Long, straggling rivers, broken during the summer into a series of pools, cross the country as far inland as the hills extend, widening in many cases nearer the coast into large sea estuaries. The climate is one of tin- most temperate in the world, especially in the South-Wesiern portion, where excessive cold is never, and excessive heat very rarely known. The summer heat, which is mostly dry, with hardly any rainfall, is during the