Slump in Australia Increases Unemployed

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7201, 26 April 1930, Page 6

Slump in Australia Increases Unemployed

BUSINESS BAD DEN DUALLY. TARIFF WALL INTENDED TO AID • LOCAL TRADES. "Busucss generally Is very bad over here," writes an Australian business man to a friend in Palmerston North. "Every class of trado is feeling it and many firms arc reducing salaries or wages by ton per cent, and aro also making their staff's tako one week off in. every four or live, without pay. In one instance, an employee of a certain department had an enforced holiday of three weeks.

“ A friend of mine," faiutes the same writer, “was asked to give a man cmpJoyiiKi.it in liis garden. liy did so and the man toid liim lie was a B.ye. and bad had no work for seven months." The effect of the financial crisis in Australia was also hientioucd to a reporter on Thursday, by Mr. A. H. AT. vV right, of Palmerston North, -who has jgst returned fre-*.i a trip across the Tasman. There was a trade slump and yet a great many people did wot seem to appreciate the position. The picture theatres and places of amusement were still crowded, as well as tho restaurants, where meals cost twice as much as in Now Zealand. The building trade had been hit along with the others. One firm which had had a normal output of half 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 shops and houses wero at a premium, but now there were quite a number to let.

As regards unemployment, two days before ho left Sydney, Fanners,' Ltd., called for three sales girls and before S o’clock next morning, there were 200 applicants waiting in a q*eue. The following morning, another firm wanted one sales girl and there was a queue of 145 waiting for the job. The only two commodities he found cheaper in Australia were fruit and newspapers.

The business community generally considered that the new tariff wall which practically prohibited the importation of all manufactures that could bo made in Australia, would be a benefit. An indication of the inpenctrablo 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.