AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 59, 11 March 1930, Page 9

AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

SUFFERING FOR ( SINS. DISTRESS AND UNEMPLOYED. FIFTY MILLION POUNDS SHORTAGE. "Australia is passing through financial distress, and unemployment is reaching huge figures. The present depression will no doubt bo a severe lesson, and will prove a blessing in disguise," said Mr. Albert Spencer, president of the Auckland Employers' Association, when he returned to Auckland by the Marama this morning. In For A Bad Spin. "The Commonwealth is in for a bad spin," he said, "but as she has recovered from other bad times experienced in the past, there should be no reasonfor pessimism. Unfortunately there are many who decry their own country instead of boosting it along. Australia is a wonderful country, full of possibilities, and if properly worked and managed should be a land flowing with milk and honey. From general appear-; ances. the big cities look prosperous, but general trade is slack. Australia is" now reaping the whirlwind of criminal waste by reckless extravagance 'in spending loan moneys too easily borrowed when times were prosperous. The country is now forced to enter on a period of drastic retrenchment, which becomes all the harder when credit is stopped. It will require all the energy and hard work on the part of the people, combined with personal service and selfsacrifice, to lift the country out of its present difficulties. But it can bo done, and Young Australia will do it if shown the way. Politicians Disregard Welfare. "Tlie politicians who are striving for influence and power are incapable of showing the way " said Mr. Spancer. "On the contrary, they delude the . workers by all sorts of wild promises, which the country's finances will not permit to be Carried' out. Australia is a land of strikes, and capital from abroad is shy to invest in industrial concerns, which means Avithholding millions of money which would come to the country for irivestment. When a drought occurs in the north, the south is showing bountiful production. You hear of disaster in one State, the other five are booming. A strike here and a strike there, costing a couple of million less in wages and trade, seems to be the Australian child's play. The coal miners are working in one district paying the strikers in another part to remain idle.