BLEEDING AUSTRALIA

Southland Times, Issue 20012, 28 October 1926, Page 7

BLEEDING AUSTRALIA

FOREIGN OIL COMBINES. PROGRESS OF TRANSPORT HAMPERED Sydney, October'27. Speaking at the opening of the annual conference of the Country Press Association, Dr Earle Page, Acting-Prime Minister, dealt with the transport question. He declared that the progress of road locomotion in Australia was being hampered by the operations of foreign oil combines and charged them with bleeding Australia white, both in peace and war time, and endeavouring to dictate a development policy to the country. The progress of road locomotion had been handicapped by the large toll foreign oil combines had levied on the Commonwealth, and the Government had decided that this unnecessary handicap should not be allowed to continue indefinitely. The Government was prepared to fight this foreign dictation of policy and exploitation to a finish. Though these companies had captured the legislatures in many other countries in which they operated they would not be able to work their will in Australia, which would not allow them to take the savings that a national plan of transport would enable Australia to make. The association’s annual report advocated the necessity of the quick despatch and receipt of Press cables. The secretary’s report stated that prices of newsprint had not been materially reduced through granting preference thereon to Canada. It was only a few shillings per ton less than the best price for Britishrnade paper, and just sufficient to get the business. The report adds —“The effect Of allowing the largest makers of newsprint in the world to dump their surplus paper into Australasia had a most damaging effect on the movement to make Australia self-con-tained in its newsprint requirements. It upset the original calculations of those concerned in establishing the newsprint industry here.”—A. & N.Z.