DEPRESSED AUSTRALIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1076, 13 September 1930, Page 9

DEPRESSED AUSTRALIA

ATTACK ON HIGH COSTS OF PRODUCTION HOW MANY PARLIAMENTS? Reed. 10.45 a.m. CANBERRA, Today. The members of the Federal Cabinet are assembling at Canberra in order to take practical measures to solve the problem of the Commonwealth’s financial depression. Sir Robert Gibson, chairman of the Commonwealth Bank, and Mr. H. VV. Gapp, formerly head of the Migration Commission, will act as advisers to the Cabinet on matters of finance and trade development. Already they have submitted a report emphasising that the costs of prodtiction must be reduced to enable Australian products to be sold overseas at a profit. Otherwise, they say, the unemployed probably will increase to 500,000 by Christmas. The N.S.W. State Premier, Mr. T. R. Bavin, referring to Mr. J. E. Fenton’s remarks that there were too many Parliaments in Australia, said that 3uch a suggestion at the present time only obscured the real issue. Obviously there must be a Parliament for each State. TRADE UNIONS’ VIEW Far-reaching proposals are contained in a report submitted by the sub-committee on unemployment and on the financial position at a special inter-State conference of the Australasian Council of Trades Lnions at Melbourne. . Among the recommendations made were one that to free the credit resources of the country the Federal Government should provide £2O 000,000, and another, that the decisions of the Premiers’ Conference be repudiated by the Fedei’al and State Labour Governments and that the Loan Council should be dissolved.