BIG TASK COMPLETED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 11, 14 January 1929, Page 5

BIG TASK COMPLETED.

REPORTING ON AUSTRALIA. BRITISH MISSION RETURNING. INTERESTING CONCLUSIONS. Imagine the labour involved in making an investigation into the development of the resources of the Australian Commonwealth, and into the various matters of mutual economic interest to Australia and Great Britain. The task was one upon which the four members of the British Business Mission embarked last September, and in the course of their lengthy inquiries they travelled over 20,000 miles and held over 100 conferences with governments, representatives of public bodies, local organisations, associations of producers and traders of every kind, concerned in the primary and secondary industries.

Three members of the mission, Sir Hugo Hirst, Sir Ernest Clark and Mr. D. O. Malcolm, accompanied by their wives, were on board the Aorangi, when arrived last evening from Sydney. They all agreed that the voyage of three and a-half days had afforded them the opportunity of enjoying a much-de-sired respite. They said that Sir Arthur Duckham, leader of the mission, would be leaving Australia by the Niagara next month, on his return to England. Restriction of Immigration. The report presented by the mission was placed before a conference of representatives of the Commonwealth and State Governments on the night before Sir Hugo and his colleagues left Sydney. It described Australian finances as being in a sound condition, recommended that immigration should be restricted and criticised the working of the Arbitration Court system. It stated that too much money had been spent unprofitably on development schemes, undertaken either without sufficient regard to their probable financial and economic results, or without adequate preliminary investigation of the schemes themselves.

Although the opinion was expressed that Australia had unnecessarily or unmortgaged the future, the financial position of the Commonwealth was described as sound, in the sense that the national income and the sources of public revenue were amply sufficient to meet the Government expenditure, and to provide for public services and the repayment of the public debt.

Important among the recommendations made by the mission was that which urged immediate action toward the establishment of a uniform gauge of railway between the different States. It was also recommended that the Navigation Acts should be remodelled, as they were retarding inter-State trade and development. Migration, it was considered, should receive encouragement only so far as the prosperity of Australia gave the continent power to absorb migrants. A Virions Circle. In a reference to the protective tariffs and their relation to the Arbitration Acts, Sir Hugo Hirst said the mission had its attention directed to an oftrepeated complaint that successive increases in tariff had for some years followed upon, or been followed by, successive advances in the cost of labour, as the result of decisions under the Arbitration Act. The result had been a vicious circle of ever-ascending costs and prices, the condition of affairs being of such a nature that Australia's progress was being crippled and her power of supporting a larger population hampered.

Among all the tasks which Australia had to face none appeared more urgent than that of breaking this vicious circle, and by some method bringing down the cost of production toward the parity of other industrial countries, and at the same time avoiding any decline in the standard of living, as measured by real wages, as contrasted with money wages. The part of the mission's criticism which related to finance included the statement: "Our final conclusion in regard to Australia's finance is that her creditors have no cause for present anxiety, because she is still borrowing well within her actual and potential resources, but we are of opinion that she has not in past years always borrowed wisely, and that she has pledged to too great an extent those future resources, and mortgaged too deeply that future prosperity upon which she can reasonably reckon, thus throwing the burden of her borrowings upon future generations, who will have their own needs to meet."

Overlapping. Overlapping jurisdiction was another matter to which the mission directed their attention, and they found that a change in the method of dealing with industrial disputes appeared to be essential. They held that there should be a minimum of Government interference, except so far as the health and safety of persons engaged in industry might be concerned. If industrial disputes must continue to be referred to Arbitration Courts for settlement, it appeared that the faults of the system would continue to be intensified, unless an end could be put to the overlapping and conflict between the spheres of Commonwealth and State jurisdiction. Sir Hugo said it was felt that only if all concerned in industry in Australia genuinely recognised that their fortunes were bound up with its success or failure, could its essential prosperity be achieved.