AUSTRALIA'S OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 9

AUSTRALIA'S OUTLOOK

GROUNDS FOR .OPTIMISM : GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES . (From "The Post's" Representative,) SYDNEY, 3rd January. Those who are inclined to ibelievo .that the outlook of Australia is about as cheeful as a Greek drama, can take a course of statistical figures with advantage to themselves and to their country. New South Wales, for example, begins the new year with a population of just under two and a half rnillons. Of that number, more than a million are, unfortunately, housed in the metropolis of Sydney, but this after all is a problem not'peculiar to this city.

Take, again, Western Australia, the agricultural industry of which lias changed, the face of the remote western State, made the wilderness blossom as the rose and easily compensated for the decline in the gold mining industry. There- can be nothing much wrong with a country whose population lias multiplied by about eight in a little- rnoro than a quarter of a century. In the opinion of the Deputy Governor of the Commonwealth Bank-(Mr. i Armitage) who returned to Sydney recently from an inspection of the Primary and other industries of Australia, the States holding out the great promise are Western Australia and Queensland, the latter, he says, because of its wonderful recuperative qualities after a dry spell. The population of Australia, since the inauguration of Die Commonwealth, has more than doubled. It means, in short, that, with the maintenance of-this increase, the population of Australia wilt have soared to twelve or thirteen million people in another qoaiter pi, & cemttrry.