Financial Reconstruction of Austria (Fourth Year)
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[Distributed to the Members of the Council.] C. 3 0 7 . 1926. il. Geneva, May 31st, 1926. LEAGUE OF NATIONS Financial Reconstruction of Austria (Fourth Year) FORTY-FIRST REPORT BY THE Commissioner-General of the League of Nations for Austria. (Period April 15th to May 15th, 1926. — Fifth Month of Sixth Stage.) I. I ntroduction . I have the honour to submit to the Council of the League of Nations my Forty-first Monthly Report, relating to the period April 15th to May 15th, 1926. During the period covered by the present Report, the Audit Office forwarded to me the closed accounts for the year 1925, which it had established. The Audit Office states that the budget administration, including the expenditure on investments, shows a surplus of 76.4 million schillings, but that, with the exception of about 5.5 million schillings, this surplus has gone to meet the deficit on current account transactions and to cover other operations not included in the budget admini stration. The current expenditure, amounting to 741.4 million schillings, is 28.6 millions higher than the maximum fixed in the Agreement of September 1924. In the opinion of the Audit Office, this circumstance is due to certain causes, such as the rise in the exchange rate of certain currencies and the increase in unemployment, which are beyond the control of the financial authorities, and it cannot therefore strictly be said that the limits have been overstepped. The Audit Office calculates the amount by which the limit has thus been unavoidably exceeded at 36.5 million schillings, and this sum, if deducted from the total of the current expenditure, would reduce the amount of the other expenditure to 704.9 millions, i.e., a figure 7.9 millions less than the maximum of 712.8 million schillings laid down in the 1924 Agreement. The Financial Committee will have an opportunity of examining the closed accounts of the Audit Office at its next session at the beginning of June, and will be able to arrive at the necessary conclusions. I I . R e d u c t io n in t h e N u m b e r o f O f f ic ia l s . For the month of April, there has been a reduction of 115 in the number of officials in the Central Administration and 92 in the State undertakings. The total number discharged since the financial reconstruction scheme was introduced is therefore 84,900 4- 207 = 85,107. I I I . F in a n c ia l S it u a t io n . In my last report, I drew the attention of the Council to the fact that the advances for invest ments of a clearly productive character in the first quarter of the current year, totalling...................................................................................................... 29,466,236 schillings were considerably in excess of three-twelfths of the maximum sum of 85,000,000 » which I undertook to release. The Government submitted to me at the beginning of April a further request for advances in respect of investments of a clearly productive nature during that month, totalling.................... 13,600,000 » I agreed to this new advance, which brought the total to .................... 43,066,236 i.e., more than half the maximum. I have, however, called the attention of the Government to this circumstance and asked whether it considered it could keep within the budgetary limits lixed for expenditure on productive investments. S' d. N. 1050 (F). 950 (A). 3 16. Imp. A. Kondig. Publications of the League of Nations II. ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL 1926. II. 17. The movements of the blocked accounts for April are shown in Annex III. A ccount A shows the following receipts : Millions of schillings T obacco.......................................................................................................... 23.2 C ustom s.......................................................................................................... 16.6 Total .... 39.8 Account B, Loans, showed a balance at the end of the month of about 277,140,100s chillings, including 221,267,600 schillings in foreign currencies. The National Bank has continued to grant credits to agriculture for the purchase of fertilisers, amounting in all to 3,094,000 schillings at the end of April. Purchases of International Loan bonds continued on the various markets during the course of the month. At the end of April the total amount bought represented about 28.67 million schillings. * * * The preliminary budget for May shows a deficit of 10.01 million schillings, as will be seen from the following table. I. Budget Administration. (a) Current administration : Millions of schillings E x p e n d itu re .......................................................................... 70.35 R eceip ts.................................................................................. 70.84 S u rp lu s ......................... 0.49 (b) In v e stm e n ts.............................................................................. 13.26 Deficit............................. 12.77 II. Current Account Transactions. S u rp lu s ......................... 2.76 Total d e fic it................. 10.01 The Closed Accounts for March 1926 (given in Annex IV) show the following results : Closed Accounts Difference Monthly between preliminary estimates and budget Position Cash closed accounts from books position (books) Millions of schillings I. Budget Administration. (a) Current administration : Expenditure .... 71.22 76.14 75-93 + 4-92 R e c e ip ts .................... 72.12 77-32 76.86 + 5-20 Deficit .... Surplus .... O.9O 1.18 0.93 + 0.28 (b) Investments................ I4 .IO 13.86 13.86 — 0.24 Total I : Deficit .... 13.20 12.68 12.93 — 0.52 Surplus .... II. Current-Account Transactions. Expenditure .... 8.47 23-93 23-93 + 1 5 -4 6 R e c e ip ts .................... 6-33 23-58 23-58 + 1 7 -2 5 Total II : Deficit .... 2 .I4 0-35 0-35 — 1-79 III. Administration as a Whole: Totals I and II: Total deficit . 15-34 13-03 13.28 — 2.31 IV. M o n e t a r y a n d E c o n o m ic S it u a t io n . Between April 7th and May 7th, 1926, the position of the National Bank changed as follows: As regards assets, the reserve (gold and foreign currencies) rose from 506.7 million schillings to 508 millions, i.e. an increase of 1.3 millions. The difference in the amount of bills d isc o u n te d is also inconsiderable (85.7 millions on April 7th and 84.6 millions on May 7th). Forward exchange continues to decline (29.2 millions on May 7th, as against 32.7 on April 7th). The same heading in the statement further showed, on May 7th, 30.2 millions in pounds and dollars not placed in the reserve (25.3 on April 7th). The metallic currency employed as cover was 1.7 millions on May 7th (1 million on April 7th). The State debt to the Bank and advances on pledged securities have altered very little. As regards liabilities, the circulation proper has diminished only slightly (790.8 millions on April 7th and 787.9 on May 7th, while the total circulation, including deposits and current accounts, was somewhat larger (832.7 on April 7th and 837.3 on May 7th). Banknotes in crowns represented an amount of only 28.3 millions on May 7th. The circulation of metallic currency increased by 2 million schillings during April. Parliament has adopted the bill increasing the issue of silver coins (see my previous Report). On the other hand, the issue limits for nickel and bronze coins have been lowered. * * * As a result of seasonal causes, unemployment continues to diminish in Austria, but the rate of improvement is now beginning to slow down. The number of unemployed in receipt of relief fell from 174,881 on April 15th to 159,181 on May 1st and 149,143 on May 15th. As against this decline, there has been an increase in the number of unemployed in receipt of exceptional relief. The unemployment figures are higher than those recorded in previous years at the same date. The number of unemployed in receipt of relief on May 15th was about : 1923 1924 1925 1926 120,000 76,000 139,000 164,000 * • * The figures of Austria’s foreign trade have now been published for February 1926. In the following table, the results for the first two months of 1926 are compared with those for the same period in 1925, the figures for January and February 1925 having been published together. Imports. (Millions of schillings) January 1926 February 1926 Jan.-Feb. 1926 Jan.-Feb. 1925 T o ta l.................................................................. 224.3 217.4 441.7 371.6 Including : Live animals ............................................. 16.0 12.8 28.8 28.8 Foodstuffs and beverages......................... 58.9 54-9 113.8 90.8 Raw materials and semi-manufactured a rtic le s................................................. 78.5 68.5 147.0 132.0 Finished articles......................................... 68.5 78.7 147.2 109.8 Gold and silver (including currency) . 2.4 2-5 49 10.2 Exports. T o ta l............................................................. 108.4 130.7 239.1 264.4 Including : Live a n i m a l s ............................................. 0.7 0-5 1.2 15 Foodstuffs and beverages......................... 2.2 2.2 4-4 57 Raw materials and semi-manufactured a rtic le s................................................. 23.8 28.0 51.8 58.0 Finished articles......................................... 79.0 98.2 177.2 188.4 Gold and silver (including currency) . 2.7 1.8 4 5 10.8 Exports in February 1926 were therefore higher than in January 1926, but the total is less than for the corresponding months of 1925. Imports in January-February 1925 were below those for January-February 1926. This is due to the Customs tariff which came into force on January 1st, 1925.