AUSTRALIA’S ADVERSITY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 220, 13 August 1930, Page 7

AUSTRALIA’S ADVERSITY.

LEGISLATOR’S OPINION. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) AUCKLAND, Aug. 13. “Australia has a fully equipped and costly Parliament for every million of its people,” said Sir Thomas Tlenley, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and Minister of Public Works in the Fuller Government of 1922, who left by the Aorangi on liis return to Sydney. “There is nothing like it in the universe. Seven sovereign Parliaments and seven Government printing presses turning out laws, good and bad, by hundreds every year. The Federal and State Parliaments are in active competition as to which shall pander for votes most effectively,” he said, “and this is done regardless of the cost to the taxpayers. No political party is exempt. Government by pander sums up the position in a short sentence. The hour for economic punishment is upon us.” Australia’s financial and industrial position called for strong, heroic action, declared Sir Thomas. Whether the hour of her adversity would produce the man or men to extricate the country from the mess it had drifted into remained to be seen. There were very distinct signs of an awakening of public opinion. Mr Stanley Baldwin, former Prime Minister of Britain, addressing the Australian delegates to the Press Conference in London a few weeks ago, had said: “Tell the people the truth.” If Australia could muster up enough courage to do that he felt sure a new financial and industrial Messiah would arise and lead the country out of its present bondage. Speaking of Australia’s high tariffs. Sir Thomas said it was impossible to build a tariff wall high enough to protect inertia, and that was what Australia seemed to be suffering from. To prohibit imports from England and the sister Dominions was a serious blunder. The proper action to take was to double Australia’s exports of raw primary products and minerals and sell them at a reasonable price, which was what Australia did before the war. To restore her financial and industrial equilibrium Australia must, and, he felt sure, would introduce what had made America—freedom of contract between man and man in the same country. The Australians must learn to do three things better and more effective l —the making of things, and growing of things and transport of tilings.