WAVE OF PESSIMISM

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3238, 4 December 1930, Page 3

WAVE OF PESSIMISM

“Business over here is awful. I cannot recall such scenes in this country before, and I am really puzzled to account for the dreadful wave of pessimism which now pervades Canada and the United States',” writes Mr. H. Westoby, who was secretary to the Canadian team of bowlers who visited New Zealand last year, to a friend in Wellington. “A week ago I was in New York, and there one could see crows in the bread line. At most of the hotels you can get rooms at your own figure. In dozen of instances half the hotels are closed up, and in many others they are entirely shut up in darkness. It is the same with the theatres. In New York about 200 theatres are closed. Some 450,000 are out of work in the city alone. The gloom is so thick you can feel it, and it was with pleasure and a sense of relief that I left. In the -United States 4,000,000 men are unemployed, and certain commodities, such as wheat, cotton, rubber, sugar, etc. are selling at below production costs and stocks have gone to such depths that one feels blue in owning them. Heaven alone knows how long this awful depression will last.”