AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17472, 22 January 1931, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

MR. LANG DENIES APPEAL A VICTORY FOR MR. SCULLIN (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Received Jar, 22. 11 » m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 22. The Premier, Mr. Lang, has again denied that he appealed to the Federal Loan Council for financial assistance. "For the second time Mr. Lyon'-' recollection of what took place at the council meetings seems to bfc at fault," said Mr. Lang. The decision o! the State Labor hVty to allow Federal members to attend the caucus meeting on January 26 is regarded as a victory for Mr. Scullin over ine left wing section of the Labor Party, and the leaders of the Australian Labor Party are smarting under the defiant attitude of the Prime Minister. Mr. Lang stated in the Legislative Assembly that it was not proposed to proceed further with the censure motion passed on Messrs. Bavin and Stevens. ECONOMICS OF SOCIALISM AUSTRALIAN BREAKDOWN LESSON FROM RAILWAYS LONDON.JanI 9. "The Australian breakdown has given a deadly blow to the economics : of Socialism," declared Mr. A. M. Samuel, M.P., who was Minister for Overseas Trade in the last Baldwin Government, in a midday address to the London Tradesmen's Club. "if Australian wheat and wool," he said, "cost more to produce than customers can pay, and so remain unsold, unemployment is created. Socialist economics caused the Australian State railways to lose £8,500,000 last year. " 'We borrowed the monev from the diabolical capitalists to buifd, and run the railways, and to meet the losses on them,' say the Socialists, 'and the Capitalists refuse to lend us any more.' There is no reason, why the Australian Socialists themselves should not find the capital for the railways, Lnt they cannot do' that unless they 'can sell products which are not too dear. In that the over-high railway freights are a contributory cost of Australian production.. Freightage must fall, or eventually there will'be no goods for the railways to carry."