Page:The empire and the century.djvu/496

 services which in other countries are undertaken by municipal bodies or private enterprise, Mr. Coghlan, in his admirable statistical account, gives the total expenditure of borrowed money in Australia:

The excess of receipts over expenditure from the following sources for last year was:

Thus a return of 2&middot;30 per cent, is derived from the total loan expenditure. It is evident, therefore, that although some mistakes may have been made, the borrowed money has on the whole been wisely expended. The railways, representing the bulk of the public debt, were constructed and are administered not so much with the view of yielding profit as of promoting settlement and encouraging production. They could readily be made to yield larger profits if worked solely with