AUSTRALIAN BOOM

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 63, 8 December 1936, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN BOOM

Steadied by Droughts and Banks COMMERCIAL MAN’S VISIT “Australia, generally speaking, is in an excellent condition, There are all the elements that might lead to boom conditions were they not retarded by the severe droughts in New South Wales and parts of Queensland,” said Mr. C. J. B. Norwood, president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, in an interview with “The Dominion yesterday, on his return from a fiveweek visit to the Commonwealth.

Mr. Norwood said his conversations with leading business men in. the Commonwealth led him to the opinion that the banks were at least not helping the boom conditions along, but rather exercising their influence to steady them. That, he thought, was a very wise policy. It could not possibly do any countiy good to be thrown from slump into boom conditions in a sudden way. Such changes were upsetting and led to unstable conditions.

It was interesting to note the optimistic state of mind of the average business man, who believed that, subject to European peace, he was in for. several years of successful operations. The secondary industries of Australia unquestionably were making very great progress, Mr. Norwood said, and in many lines Australia was not second to any other part of the world in the standard of her manufactures. The Federal Government was doing its very best to assist the secondary industries, and in this respect was optimistic about the possibility of the complete manufacture of motor-ears in the Commonwealth. Conferences had been sitting during his visit to the Commonwealth, Mr. Norwood continued. His own opinion, however, was that better counsels would prevail. It was quite easy to see that unless Australia was quite willing to accept one standard car in every detail., of the same size and specification, it would be impossible to carry out this scheme. It was hard to think that Australia could possibly satisfy her people in the manufacture of a relatively small number of’ears. The Government had now decided*"not to proceed further until the report of the commission that was sitting to inquire into the economies of such a policy had been brought down. "It was certainly noticeable that considerable interest was being displayed in New Zealand politics, and the Government’s activities were being very closely watched,” Mr. Norwood said.

Mr. Norwood, as president of the Wellington chamber, acted as host to the delegates to the Congress of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire in Wellington in October. He went to Australia with some of the congress delegates and joined with them in numbers of the gatherings organised in the Commonwealth.