AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4575, 28 April 1922, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

LIBEL ACTION SETTLED. (By Electric Cable—Copyright.) (Aust.-N.Z. Cablt> Association.) Sydney, April 27. A settlement has boon effected in tho claim by Alderman Bramston for £IO.OOO damages for alleged libel against Smith’s Weekly newspaper. LITHGOW UNEMPLOYED. Sydney, April 27. Olio hundred dismissal notices have been issued to the Litligow Small Arms factory -employees, and more will follow. IRRIGATION SCHEME CALAMITOUS. Sydney, April 27. Officers of tho Auditor-General’s Department, reporting on the Murrumbidgee Irrigation areas, state tliat the loss on areas to date totals £l,498,951. Tho loss for the past year was £417,399, and the trading loss, including interest for the same period, totalled L 163,254. These losses are described as calamitous, and the question is raised whether the State has adequate security for the vast sums involved. OUTLOOK FOR STEEL TRADE. Sydney, April 27. The Special Court set up under the Eight Hours’ Amendment Act to grant an application for the extension of the forty-four hour week to the employees for the Broken Hill Proprietary Steel Works at Newcastle, Mr Beeby stating it was inexpedient at present to make any industrial change which would increase the cost of production. Foreign competition had again become a serious menace, which could only be met by a further lowering of prices. The immediate problem was for the company to achieve a producing cost which would enable it further to reduce selling prices, and as labour cost was tho main element, there was necessity for tho company’s employees coming to a new basis of wage payments, bearing relation to the local average selling price of iron and steel.