AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE

Southland Times, Issue 20791, 4 June 1929, Page 2

AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE

MR BRUCE’S OPTIMISM, WONDERFUL POSSIBILITIES. “For goodness sake let us get rid in Australia of this atmosphere of gloom and pessimism, and lack of courage, that are growing around us,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Bruce, in a spirited address to the Provincial Press Conference in Canberra recently. “One would think we could see no possibility of success in the future of this country,” Mr Bruce continued. “I assure you that in comparison with the rest of the world we have not got a problem in Australia that amounts to anything. For instance, we think we have a problem here in relation to agriculture and the secondary industries, and the drift of rural population to the cities. So we have, but I assure you that in the United States they have that problem in a form one hundred times more serious. “We have a problem in connection with the coal industry. But in England that problem is a hundred times more acute. There is the problem of our public debt, but here in Australia we have natural assets and the possibilities of increased production of wealth one hundred times greater than that of any other country. “Let us in Australia,” Mr Bruce added, “remember that we are one nation with a continent to ourselves, speaking one language, 98 per cent of us drawn from one stock, with the same traditions and the same national ideals. Compare our conditions with that of Canada, where there are two races and two languages, and where they have as neighbours the greatest industrial nation in the world. Compare it with South Africa, where they have two races and two languages, and a serious native problem. This Is incomparably the country with the greatest possibilies in the world.”