SLUMP IN AUSTRALIA

Gisborne Times, Volume LXX, Issue 11195, 2 May 1930, Page 2

SLUMP IN AUSTRALIA

■ . - . INCREASES UNEM FLO YE'D. TARIFF WALL TO ATD LOCAL TRADES. “Business generally is very bad over here,” writes an Australian business man to a friend in Palmerston North “Every class of trade is feeling it and many firms are reducing salaries or wages bv ton per cent, and are also making’ their staffs take one week off in every four or five, without pay. In one instance, an employee of a certain department had an enforced holiday of three weeks. “A friend of mine,” states the same writer, “was asked to give a man employment in his garden. Ho did so and the man told him he was a B.Sc. and had had no work for seven months.” The effect of the fi nanoial crisis in Australia was also mentioned to a reporter recently by Mr. A. H. M. Wright, of Palmerston. North, who lias just returned from, a trip across the Tasman,. There was a. trade slump and yet a great many people did not seem to appreciate the position. Tho picture theatres and places of amusement were still crowded, as well as the restaurants, where meals cost twice as-much ns in New Zealand. The building trade had been hit along with the others. One firm which had had a normal output of lialf a million bricks a week from two yards, had now closed down its works with 5,000,000 bricks awaiting sale. There was a time in Sydney, when the shops and houses were at a premium, but now there were quite a number to let. As regards unemployment, two days before he left Sydney, Farmers’, Ltd., called for three sales girls and before 8 o’clock next morning there were 200 anplieants waiting in a queue. The following morning, another firm wanted one sales girl and there was a queue of 145 waiting for tho jolt. The business community generally considered that the new tariff wall which practically prohibited the importation of all manufactures that could he made in Australia, would he a benefit. An indication of the impenetrable nature of this barrier could be secured from the fact that a duty of £2O had to be paid on a bowser pump costing £3 10s—and this duty had been imposed, it seemed, to protect two manufacturers only.