PREVENTING A BOOM

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 137, 7 December 1936, Page 10

PREVENTING A BOOM

AUSTRALIAN EFFORTS

LEVEL KEEL WANTED

The efforts that are being made by leading members of lhe business community in Australia to keep the country on a level keel and avoid a boom period were noted by Mr. C. J. B. Norwood, of Wellington, in his five weeks' visit to Melbourne and Sydney. He returned by the Awatea today. "Australia, in a business sense, is ex ccedingly .bright, and were it not for the prolonged drought in New South Wales and parts of Queensland there I are all the ingredients of producing a boom condition," said Mr. Norwood. "It is evident from my conversations with j some of the leading business men in Australia, and bankers, that a boom is the last thing that they favour, and they arc doing all they can to keep things on a level keel. Fortunately for Australia, while the drought means a very serious loss, relatively the normal products from the affected areas will not be reduced to any extent calculated to be far-reaching in its effect upon the country's well-being. "The Federal and S'.atc Governments are doing much to encourage their secondary industries, and there is much evidence of profitable accomplishment in this regard," continued Mr. Norwood. "I was struck with the high quality of the products iv many of their lines, which compare favourably with the products of older countries. "I am quite sure, too, that the Australians today are seized more than ever before with the importance of some form of immigration that will tend to fill their vacant spaces. Apart altogether from the importance of this from a purely defence and 'White Australia' point of view, men of substance believe that Australia will be safer and more prosperous when she can consume a much larger proportion of her own products."