BUSINESS BRIGHTER HERE

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXI, Issue 2449, 7 March 1931, Page 7

BUSINESS BRIGHTER HERE

COMPARISON WITH AUSTRALIA. DEPRESSION IN EUROPE. "Conditions are certainly better here than in Australia. You haven’t felt the depression nearly to the extent that we have, and business is undoubtedly brighter here, whereas dozens people I know in Australia have been ruined.” ' - This statement was made by Mr’ J. F. Elliott, the representative of a Sydney firm, who is spending a month in the Dominion. Mr Elliott, vdio is an Englishman, has recently returned from a trip Home, and has had experience of conditions there and on the Continent. "I went through Czocho-Slovakia, Germany and Italy, and the depression is everywhere,” he said. "England is in the same state and Bradford is very depressed. Though New Zealand is suffering, I do not think it is suffering to the extent that other countries are. In Germany they are hard at work to relieve the state of affairs. I noticed when I travelled through Germany that they arc working even on Sundays. "The costs of everything must come down, but people make a mistake in saying that the standard of living must come down also. That is not necessary, and it is not wanted. Everything will have to be cheaper—down to the 1914 level —but no one will need to be any worse off. "Finance is not half so tight here as it is in Australia. It docs not matter who it is or what security is offered, no one could get a penny overdraft in Sydney to-day, and it is the same, I think, throughout Australia. "A political climax has just about been reached in New South Wales,” continued Mr Elliott. "If there were an election I think that there is no doubt that the present crowd in the State Jarliament would be thrown out. If they got a sane Government things would certainly start to improve, for no one has any confidence now. Everything one reads about Australian politics or conditions generally in the papers here is very true and is not exaggerated.”