LABOUR STALWART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 43, 20 February 1935, Page 10

LABOUR STALWART.

BIG CAPITALIST.

CASE OF "GREG." McGIRR,

SUPPORTER OF MR. I*ANG, (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, February 13. Parkes, a country town which lies about 2SO miles west of Sydney on tho way toward Broken Hill, is the homo town of the MoGirr family. Of the three brothers McGirr, James is one of the leaders of the Langitos, and he stands so high in their esteem that, keeping an eye on the possibility of Mr, Lang's retirement from politics many people look upon "Jimmy" as the natural heir and successor to "the Big Fellow," However, I am concerned just now with the second McGirr (J.J.G., popularly known as "Greg"). It was at Parkes that "Greg" McGirr started in life a,s a chemist, and Parkes is still the centre of h,3s cnief activities. Before 1920 he was Labour member for Yass, and then for Cootanmmtra, and he was later a Labour Minister for Health and for Labour. Before Mr. Lang was removed from office he appointed "Greg" McGirr to the Western Lands Board, but Mr, McGirr has since suffered the fate of most commissioners, and delegates dating from the Lang regime, and he has been dismissed from office. However, having grown up in the west and seen it grow with him from boyhood, he has taken full advantage of his opportunities, and now he has his reward. All the McGirrs are rich, but "Greg" is reputedly the wealthiest of them all, and It would be investing, if it were possible, vo compare his possessions with the assets of some of oui- best known plutocrats.

300 Shops and 30 Hotels, i Between the Queensland border and the south-west "Greg" McGirr owns about 300 shops and 30 hotels scattered through 30 different towns. He admits that "he doesn't know where he is npt" in the west, and he travels about 1000 miles by car every week to inspect his holdings and to watch th,e , growth of the, many towns in which he is financially interested, No doubt credit is due to him for his persistent accumulation of property and for the shrewdness which has enabled him to enrich himself where many others have failed. "Greg." McGirr is a produet of the west, and he believes in it and its destiny. "I am a native of the back country," he told an interviewer the other day, "and I think that the future of Australia depends on the country towns, thoir farming and grazing areas, and their industries. There, I consider, is scope for the most successful form of speculation and enterprise. To prove my contention, I say that the towns wherein my interests lie came out of the depression 18 months before Sydney lifted its head." Right through the West, he maintains, there is an atmosphere of prosperity; in all the towns building is active, and he thinks that "a visit to these centres should be of tremendous educational value to anyone in Australia."

And Still a Lang Man. All this is very interesting, but it raises at least one question to which it might be difficult to find a satisfactory answer. Mr. "Greg." McGirr —like his brother "Jiinmio" on a smaller scale —has made a great deal of money by buying up properties and ostates —"laying house to houso and field to field" — after the accepted tradition of the "capitalist" whom Mr. J. T- Lang so fluently denounces and executes. Yet the .Medina are still regarded as loyal adherents of Mr. Lang and faithful exponents of the one and-only true gospel of Labour, I wonder why?