Trade Depression in Australia.

Evening Star, Issue 8807, 23 April 1892, Page 4

Trade Depression in Australia.

It would seem (.-ays the ‘New Zealand Herald ’) that times are very bad in Mel-bourne-much worse, in fact, than ia generally admitted by the Melbourne On several occasions lately wo have published extracts from letters sent to friends in Auckland by old Aucklanders now residing in various parts of Victoria. A young Aucklander, who has been three years in Melbourne, now writes to his parents in the northern city .- “Things of late have been something awful. One is lucky to have sufficient to cat, let alone carrying any pocket money. Tho oafb business has all gone bung through so much depression ; it takes them all their time to keep doors open. Tho unemployed are making no end of noise, and they stop you in every street begging for a few pence. I cannot pick up a job at any price, aud all the big fellows who premised to help me have gone bankrupt or next to it, as very many of them have got clear by paying as low as 4s in tho round. My old company, , has gone into liquidation, and there are hundreds of -uffi companies at present in the same state. So many building sochtics suspending payment, they getting the depositors to fix their money for another three years, has locked so much capital up that one may say buihess is almost carried on without money in Melbourne at the present time. Tho papers try to bolster this place up all they can, but they cannot get away from the fact that Melbourne at tho present time is rotten, and before winter is over things will bo a shade worse, if such ia possible to be. We have had such a mild summer, and the wholesale houses having imported larger than usual, and not being able to sell at any price to the retail man, have just about burned their

fingers off. ... To show how bad things are, places in Collins street rented at L' 2,000 a year not twelve months back can now be had for LGOO. No wonder that people herwwho have money do not care to invest it.”W

We have been permitted to make the following extracts from a letter just received from an old railway hand in Dunedin, who is now settled in Sydney“lt u a great pity to compel Now Zealanders to come to this c!imi#6 to look for work, for if it does cot kill it makes such a difference in them that few would recognise them. I am often sorry that I brought my family away from Now Zealand, but as work was scarse there and plentiful here at that time what else could I do? But things are greatly altered now, for trade is in a shocking condition in New South Wales (and worse still in Melbourne, I hear). From the papers 1 have mailed herewith you will see that over 6,000 people have given in their names to the Government Labor Bureau, and that the Exhibition buildings have been given up to the hundreds of houseless beings to sleep in, whilst the charitably disposed are subscribing funds to feed them with. I myself have had very unsettled work since September last. Since that date I have only worked four months in the railway workshops. I am there for a week at present, but the job will only last for another ten days. I was in Sydney a fortnight ago looking for work, and found things there to be very bad. Although there are in the city sixty-four firms employing engineers, only one or two of them have a job in hand. To see the number of men who were looking for work was very disheartening. I can assure you I was very glad when I got a telegram from the firm with whom I had been working before to return and start on a three weeks’ job, But, as yon can readily believe, this in and out style of work will not pay. Even when In work this is anything bat a paradise, for living is much dearer than in Dunedin, House rent is also very high. We pay 25s a week for a house net as good as you can get in Dnnedin for 10s ; yet it has no ground—simply a back yard. Bread is 2d per Alb dearer than hi Dnnedin; the meat you get la tough and tasteless, and cannot be kept for a couple of hours without turning [sour or

becoming fly blown, and there is no choice fish. What would we not give for a few Stewart Island oysters, ora nice flounder, and many other things that we could get in Dnnedin, and there did not appreciate them as we would now I The only things that are plentiful here are fleas, mosquitos, flies, black sand, and swamps. . . Sydney is a little better certainly, but half a loaf In New Zealand is better than one and a-half loaves here. Protection was (according to some people a ideas) going to give employment to all the unemployed, and local industries were to flourish; there was in fact going to be a big boom in New South Wales. I was told that I was an enemy to my fellow-workers because I dared to hold a different opinion ; but by a strange coincidence ever since the new tariff came into force trade has gradually got worse, and some of the firms who were to employ more men (two to my knowledge) have gone bankrupt, and others are expected. Oertainly the bogus bank failures, of which we have had many and are likely to have more, have been the cause of a lot of the depression and failures, but trade must be bad or money scarce when the Railway Commissioners had to dispense with from 600 to 700 hands, myself amongst them, and now all the railway shops under the Commissioners are working short time—namely, not on Saturdays. . . . It is surprising the ignorance that exists hero as to the size and resources of New Zealand. Some people even think that the inhabitants are principally naked Maoris. [ am often laughed at when I say that little New Zealand can give big New South Wales a long start in almost everything, especially in postal arrangements, good legislative measures, and numerous other things in which New South Wales is filty years beljirrct New Zealand. Newcastle, the so-called second city of New South Wales, has no Building Act, and its sanitary arrangements and drainage are abominable. I don’t know how typhoid fever is kept away.”