ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1929, Page 11

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

SYDNEY FEELS.THE PINCH. WARNING BY A MINISTER. 1 Sydney, July 4. Sydney is passing through hard, times. The business community is trying to put a cheerful face on' things, but the fact that the city is facing a bad time cannot be masked. The shops generally are feeling the pinch. The other- day the Minister of Trade and Customs, Mr. Gullet, in a speech in Sydney before the Constitutional Asgociation, uttered a grave warning with regard to the economic position facing Australia generally, and said the time had arrived when the community had to think harder and work harder. “He’s’a gloomy prophet, anyway,” muttered one of his audience, after the gathering had dispersed. “But why play the part of the ostrich?” inquired another business man, “Why bury our heads in the sand, when we know what he says ie perfectly true ?’* The fact that there . is railway and tramway retrenchment is, it itself, significant. The latest dismissals affect about 130 tramwaymen, owing to a slump in tram traffic and revenue. With a public debt in New South Wales of more than £245,000,000; with an interest bill on that debt of about £1,000,000 a months with an increase in the wages bill of the railways and tramways of more than £2,000,000 in respect to awards and the 44 hours’ week, compared with 1923-24, and with a financial tightness generally, it is not surprising that the Government is out to make every penny a winner. The man in the street is apt to .attribute the depression to the Government, especially if he is a Labour supporter, and to such other factors as the coal crisis, for example. The trouble on the coalfields is, of course, reflected in the city, but the root causes of a disquieting financial and economic position in the State, if not throughout Australia generally, are the hard-boiled facts that th' value in the world’s markets of the things we produce and sell has substantially dropped, and that our production costs are becoming too high to enable successful competition in markets abroad.

However Superficially the average man is inclined to view these things, Australia 1* vitally influenced by world problems and siuations, and cannot escape them. In 1923-24, for example, New South Wales was able to get an average price of considerably more than 2s a lb. for its wool. The average price during the first quarter of this year was Is Ba. When the present Government assumed office in New South Wales the price of wheat was 5s 6d a bushel; today it is about 4s 3d. The quantity of primary production has increased during the past few years, but this increase has not been sufficient to make good the lose in oversea value. That is the real economic problem. That the Government’s financial programme for the incoming financial year will disclose further economy of a very definite character is beyond question. The Public Service has “the wind up.” There is talk of an all-round salary cut, but this is not likely to be resorted to except as an extreme measure. It would be inexpedient politically, anyway, and the Government knows- it. The position is not at all bright, and why try to disguise a fact which even the Government itself makes abundantly clear in its pronouncements and • actions ?