MIRAGE OF PROSPERITY

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 12

MIRAGE OF PROSPERITY

WOOL BOOM AND GOLD INFLATION DECEPTIVE THE SHACKLES OF POLITICS FORTHRIGHT AUSTRALIAN CRITIC [Special to the ‘ Stab.’] AUCKLAND, February 8. “ Wlicu you are told that Australia, and especially New South Wales, has turned the corner, you must understand that such expressions are cheery optimism,” said Sir Thomas Henley, or Sydney, in an interview to-day. He is making the round trip from Sydney to Auckland and back by the Wanganella. In 'his- opinion the Commonwealth Government, and the Governments of the States, as well as the municipal bodies, were burdening the country with an aggregate administrative cost in salaries which was 60 per cent, heavier on the people than twenty years ago. This situation arose from the fact that the younger generation of voters would support no candidate or policy which was not popular and vote catching in character, regardless of "its effects upon business and public finance. The cure, he said, was to carry out a programme of public economy and courageous facing of problems by Parliaments and local authorities. IDLE MEN AND IDLE MONEY. “ We have not turned the corner,” continued Sir Thomas. “All we have done, thanks to the wool boom and the inflated value of gold, is to sink a little lower in the mire of public debt. Industrial arbitration and political meddling still grip . us. Social credit will not help us; we have had too much expansion of credit in Australia, and we still wallow in it. The Commonwealth to-day is suffering from a surfeit of idle men and idle money while the world is underfed, and many of our own people have not enough to keep them from being hungry. Wo cannot say that we have turned the corner until those of ail ages who are willing to work are given useful and profitable employment; and until we as a nation can compete in the markets of the world in firm competitive basis we cannot fairly claim that we have solved our problems. We are suffering from under-consumption, from inefficiency in many directions, and from costly distribution—all arising from political causes, from the buying .of votes and from industrial conditions that still suggest a form of slavery.” Sir Thomas said that when the inflation bubble burst a citizen of some prominence in Sydney started the Optimists’ Club, and all those who dared to warn people and Governments about what was coming were stigmatised as pessimists. The club promoter was among the first to go to the wall. NEW ZEALAND AND ARBITRATION. ' In Sir Thomas’s view, New Zealand had not made a t backward step in suspending the operation of the Arbitration Act. . He considered that the Government’s action in that respect had helped to free industry in- the dominion, and he expected it to result in the gain of industrial liberty. Regarding unemployment in Australia, Sir Thomas said there was still a large army of men out of work, many of whom were becoming gradually unemployable. Some had had no real employment for two and a-half to three years, and therein lay the germ of a crop of difficulties.

WAGE-FIXING IN AUSTRALIA. Sir Thomas described the methods of wage-fixing in Australia as “ costly and cumbersome.” The arbitration system did not honestly arbitrate, and the conciliation committies did not conciliate. They only increased the cost of living and the cost of producing. The system was handicapping recovery, because it set a false standard and prevented readjustment to conditions which had undergone drastic and far-reaching changes in the past few years. What they needed was the opportunity to work, but this they could not have while artificial wage standards persisted in the country; nor could youths fresh from school be drawn into employment. In the State of New South Wales, with which Sir Thomas said he was most familiar, the loss due to unemployment had been colossal, and it had been aggravated by po|itlcal influences which shackled industry, stripped it of its freedom, and made it the plaything of politics.