FROM CANBERRA.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19675, 19 July 1929, Page 19

FROM CANBERRA.

+ | DEFENCE RETRENCHMENT. I j TRADE WITH AMERICA. i j (F3OM OUS SPECIAL aSFBESE-N-TATIVE.; | CANBEKKA, July 5. i Sir William Glasgow, Minister for Defence,, is not a very happy man just now. The Federal Government has entered upon a big retrenchment policy embracing all Departments, Lut the Defence Department appears to be bearing the brunt of it. If reports are true, Sir William has vigorously protested against the slaughter, though as a loyal member of the Cabinet and a good soldier he is obeying orders. Every branch of the Defence Department is affected —naval and military establishments, and the Air Force. Is it possible that the Bruce-Page Government is pinning its faith to the negotiations begun by Mr Kamsay Mac Donald and General Dawes for a new Disarmament and World Peace Conference, with Great Britain and the United States taking the lead? Is the Millennium at hand? Whatever views may be held on this great question, the fact remains that the ruthless retrenchment in tho Defenee Department is viewed in certain high quarters with considerable alarm. Year after year General Chauvel, as Inspector-General of the Military Foree9, has been drawing attention to I the inadequacy of the provision made in this connexion. Now comes a protest from the Navy League against the cutting down of the Naval estimates; ana there is a widespread feeling that, instead of reducing expenditure in the Air Force, we should be increasing it. General Glasgow himself was anxious to see the Air Force put on a stronger footing, and to this end he recently ordered a large number of modern aeroplanes, combining bombing and fighting capabilities in the one machine. This action was taken on the advice of Sir John Salmond, Chief of the British Air Force, who made a special visit to Australia a year or so ago to report on the subject. Most of these machines, it is understood, have already reached Australia. Are they to share the fate of the gift aeroplanes presented to the Commonwealth Government after the war, and which were just allowed to rust away? Not the least serious step is the decision to close down the experimental station at Randwick. This may mean the departure of Wing-Commander Wackett, one of our most able aeroplane engineers, for America. It is a way we have in Australia—letting our best men go to other countries.

No doubt it is a ease of needs must when the devil drives—and the devil is driving us very hard just now. Dr. Page, the Treasurer, will tell us all about that when he delivers his Budget speech in August. There must either be fresh taxation or retrenchment, and the Government has chosen the latter course. The people are in no mood to stand any further taxation. Australia is already the second highest-taxed country in the world.

An Alarming Position. Nothing could more strikingly illustrate the serious financial position of Australia than the figures given on Thursday by Mr Charles Binnie, president of the Stockowners' Association of New South Wales, in drawing a comparison between Australia and Canada. Mr Binnie, by the way, is a director of the Bank of New South Wales. Canada has a population approaching ten millions; Australia's population is not quite six and a half millions. Canada has a public debt of £460,000,000; Australia's debt—Commonwealth and States combined—is £1,043,700,000. Canada recently reduced her debt by £10,250,000 in twelve months, reduced taxes by £5,000,000, had a Budget surplus of £14,000,000, and a favourable trade balance amounting to £30,000,000. Australia will this year add another £30,000,000 to her pvblic debt — that being the amount allocated at the recent Loan Council Conference at Canberra. With both public and private debts, Australia is practically mortgaged to the extent of about 60 per cent, of her supposed national wealth. Mr Binnie delivered a rather sharp rebuke to the Prime Minister. "When being entertained by business men some months ago," he said, "Mr Bruce told his hosts that 'not one of them had the foggiest notion of what our finances mean,' and he also told them to find out what his Government was i doing and to become an intelligent audi- ! ence! To this charge the primary proj ducers and the business men of Australia may fairly reply that, if they conducted their affairs in the same slipshod extravagant, and unbusinesslike manner as is the vogue with the Commonwealth and every State Government, not only they, but the whole country, would be hopelessly insolvent." These are hard words. Probably Mr Bruce has had occasion to regret more than once that he himself used such hard words to the business men of Sydney. Another Trade War. There are peop'e who contend that the Great War was a trade war—that it would not have occurred if Germany had not been bidding for a bigger share in the world's trade. There are signs that we are going to witness another great trade war; but it happens, fortunately, that the country which is going to make the bid for the world's trade is the one which, at the present moment, is straining every effort to ensure the world's future peace. Mr Herbert Brookes . has just left for New York to take up the post of Commissioner-General for Australia in the United States, and one of the first things he will do will be to "talk over" trade matters with the Government of that country—particularly those extra duties on Australian produce which have recently been the subject of a "Note" to Washington from the Commonwealth Government. By way of a reprisal, no doubt, the Prime Minister, Mr Bruce, is proposing a big forward jump in Australia in the way of motor-car manufacturing—an all-Australian car. from head to boot, so to speak; Already steps are being taken to form a huge Australian company for the purpose.

But is it practicable? If we are to believe Sir Herbert Austin, the head of the biggest motor-car works in the United Kingdom, it would be impossible ; for British manufacturers to compete ! with America, if the latter country really set about flooding the market — unless, of course, the importation of American cars were absolutely prohibited, and that is something the people of Britain would never agree to. Whether the people of Australia would consent to pay a very big price for British or Australian-made cars and shut out Americ.n cars altogether is another miestion : hut one cannot help wondering how lone it would He before America n capita! barl control of it all ' "The people of Australia have but the very faintest ; dea of what mass production means/' said a traveller who has visited the Ford works in Detroit. "I stood and watted two pieces of steel moving along and changing into

i ail sorti or shapes under the influence )of ail sorts of uncanny processes. As I they passed alone: and chanced their i shape something eaine down from above j and linked itself with them, something j came up from below, something joined I then at the sides, machines screwed ; nuts on, machines whizzed round doing i all manner of tilings —and the whole thing came out at the end of the shed a perfectly finished motor-car! One after another, they came out —hundreds and thousands of them! How can Australia go in for mass production of that kind? And without mass production how can we produce cars at a reasonable police ?'' i Umpire Migration. i These appears to be no doubt that ! the '-big plan'' of the Ramsay Maci Donald Government for the relief of the unemployment problem in Britain includes proposals for large-scale migration to the Dominions. So long as this migration is conducted on scientific lines, and the necessary money is forthcoming, the seheme may have a chance of success. That a country as rich and as large as Australia, for instance, should have a record number of unemployed is onj of those great puzzles which the economists of the j Commonwealth are at present trying to solve. If all that is necessary to develop this country and increase its production is to fill it with people, we ought to welcome any scheme for giving us the people. That we are not welcoming them—that, instead of looking for more people, we should be wondering how we are going to find employment for those who are already here—shows that there arc factors at work that are not always taken into account. Mr L. S. Amery, who was Secretary for the Dominions in the Baldwin Government, visited Australia not long since. He and Mr Bruce had great migration plans in their heads. But what has happened? Nothing! The problem of employment, Mr Amery said in his speeches, was essentially one of the right distribution of population. In the British Empire that population was wrongly distributed: first, as between industry and agriculture, and second, as between Great Britain and the Dominions. In Britain the population was over 400 to the square mile; in the Dominions it was under six. What was wanted was a policy of Empire migration and Empire land settlement carried out on a large scale. Now Mr Macj onald and Mr Thomas are saying the same thing. But up to the present nobody has known how to go about it. Perhaps if the £34,000,000 that there has been o much talk about were handed over by the politicians to a few big business men something really worth while would be done with it to the great advantage of both Great Britain and the Dominions.