GRAFT IN BUSINESS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18266, 27 December 1924, Page 5

GRAFT IN BUSINESS.

ALDERMAN'S SPEECH CAUSES STIR. "We have been abused in regard to the graft charges. Can any man sitting round this table to-day, business or professional, tell me whether he operates his business entirely without graft? There are things that are known and recognised by everybody, and 1 it is no good closing our eyes. The world wants to be reborn if you want to cut out many things as they are to-day." These remarks were made by Alderman English, when representing the Lord Mayor of Sydney (says the "Morning Herald") at a luncheon of the Town Planning Association. He was replying to remarks made by Sir John Sulman as to tfie efficiency of the American system of civic control by means of commissions. As an example of inefficiency of commission control, Alderman English pointed to the New South Wales Railways Commission, to review the work of which, he said, it had been found necessary to appoint other commissioners. An elective assembly, appointed every throe years, he claimed, was preferable, for if it did not carry out its duties it could be removed at the will of the people. If Labour did not carry out its work in controlling the City Council, the neople would replace it with Civic Reform all the next elections. To appoint commissioners for a period of seven or eight years would bo placing the administration of the city in wrong hands. After making these remarks, Alderman English made the statement quoted above, which caused a considerable st'r in the assemblage.