AUSTRALIAN TRADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21454, 30 March 1933, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN TRADE

" MIRACULOUS RECOVERY" BUSINESS MAN'S VIEW [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, March 23 It is not very often that business men praise politicians, but at the annual conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Australia, the retiring president Mr. R. B. Lemmon', described tho improvement in public finances in Australia and the restoration of Australia s credit at home and abroad as a miracle. Theso developments were by far the most gratifying in the last 12 months, he said, and the main factors in those inspiring changes were the Premiers' Plan and the determination of the people to carry it out. Through the plan and the reductions ir> rents and wages an adverse balance of £31,000,000 had been converted into a total recovery of £62,000,000 in two years. The plan historically was the first comprehensive scheme for tho adjustment of financial burden carried through by a democracy on a basis of equal sacrifice. If providence favoured Australia with anotiier good season they could anticipate a reconstruction of finances and credit which would probably bo tho quickest in the record of any debtor State. As a conclusive proof of recovery Mr. Lemmon said that Commonwealth 5 per cent stocks, which were £63 10s before the adoption of the plan, wero now £lO6 13s 4d. The people owed a debt of gratitude to the Commonwealth Bank and to the trading banks for tho manner in which the Governments had been financed during the crisis. It was more than ever their duty to keep politics out of banking and to foster a system' which b£d stood between them and bankruptcy. The Ottawa agreements were the first fruits of Australia's efforts to restore the prosperity of the Empire and the purchasing power. Any opposition which had been shown to Ottawa in the Parliaments of the country was merely in 'accordance with the rules of political faction. From a strictly business point of view Australia should do all it could to cultivate the closest relations with Great Britain, which purchased such an overwhelming proportion of her primary products. Australia's dependence on Britain only emphasised the need for an extension of the Ottawa principle to Australia's relations with New Zealand, Canada and other Empire countries, as was achieved by Canada and South Africa actually at Ottawa.