“PROSPERITY” AGAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 242, 12 October 1937, Page 7

“PROSPERITY” AGAIN

SHOWN IN FIGURES N.S.W.’s SPLENDID RECOVERY SYDNEY. Sept. 30. Such a phrase as “general prosperity,” because it is hard to define precisely, lends itself easily enough to the purposes of the professional politician or the demagogue. Yet, after making all allowance for the misuse or misinterpretation of the word we may safely say that a claim for prosperity which can be supported by ample statistical evidence cannot be disproved or denied. This week the people of New South Wales have had another opportunity to discover how far the claim of the present Government to public gratitude for having restored our industrial and financial prosperity can be substantiated or justified, and it must be frankly admitted that the evidence just provided by the State statistician is, in all, satisfactory and encouraging. As regards employment, of the total available wage earners in New South Wales over 95 per cent, were at work last month. Unemployment in this State has thus fallen to less than 6 per cent, of the total number of workers, as against 11 per pent, last August, 26 per cent, in the middle of 1933 and 32 per cent in 1932 in the depths of the depression. This’ steady decline of unemployment has been accompanied by a great increase in the activity of our secondary industries. Last month the number of factory employees in this State was estimated at about 221,000, ac compared with 208,000 (average for the previous year), and 181.000 for 1928-29, the year of greatest industrial activity before the depression. New Industries A further indication of the general improvement in our industrial and commercial conditions is supplied by the figures marking the expansion of industrial capital and the increased expenditure in new industries. As regards new industries, since 1932, the capital thus invested throughout Australia is put down at over £2,700,000, and of this New South Wales claims a little over £2,000,000, or about sevenninths of the whole. As regards the expansion of existing industries, the capital value for the whole of Australia in the last live years is set down at £11,300,000, and of this total New South Wales claims £8,400,000, or about three-quarters.

It is hardly necessary to draw from these figures the obvious inference that New South Wales is Australia's main centre of secondary production; and it is for this reason that at least 75 per cent, of the capital invested in new industrial units throughout Australia since the depression have been placed in this State. No doubt this has contributed very materially to the economic revival which has marked the past five or six years here, but no such return to prosperity would have been possible if the Stevens Government had not been able to supply those elements of financial and political and economic and social stability without which no real progress can be recorded, and in which the preceding Labour administration under Lang was so conspicuously deficient.