BEEF AND WOOL

Evening Star, Issue 18021, 15 July 1922, Page 4

BEEF AND WOOL

AUSTRALIA’S HANDICAPS. FOREIGN TRUST’S ACTIVITIES. Tress Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, July 14. (Received July 15, at 9,20 a.m.) Mr Andrew Williamson, in addressing the Australian Estates Company s meeting, said that tho refusal of trade unions to accept wages according to tho true economic level was a most formidable obstacle to Australia’s return to the full tide of prosperity. Thus, while merino wool was fetching 65 per cent, above coarse cross-bred, it was 35 per cent.. bellow tho pre-war prices, and the coat oi production of all wools had doubled. Emphasising the serious position of the meat trade, ho pointed out that a foreign beef trust had flooded tho British . market, ami sold at prices below cost, thus making it impossible for Australia to compete. Five American packers, who, unlike the Australians, had enjoyed tho full benefit of war conditions, had through this policy made in 1921 an aggregate loss of £20,000,000. Ho regretted that the Imperial Government had not carried out the Bridgeman Committee’s recommendations to establish a licensing system in order_ to check practices in, tho meat trade which were inimical to the public interest. Owing to tho operation of the Queensland Repudiation Act, the company was already crippled. It hadi to pay £25,000 above the maximum mite under the leases. He hoped that steps would soon be taken by Queensland to repair this wrong to pastoralists, which ought never to have been committed.—A. and N.Z. Cable.