STATE OF TRADE IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 772, 22 December 1904, Page 43

STATE OF TRADE IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

A subscriber to the “ A.B. Jotu’iial,” in Kalgoorlie (W.A.), in a recent letter, takes a gloomy view of the condition of general trade and commerce in the Western State. Writing from Perth, he says: —“ I have had considerable opportunity to ascertain the true conditions of things in Perth, as I have for months made a house-to-house inspection of properties, and come in close contact with all classes of people, and I can truly say that beside a certain amount of comfort, there is a great deal of real hardship and distress, and many families are absolutely destitute. I hade seen homes with nothing but a few packing cases for furniture. Peculiarly, women from the east nearly always express disgust with conditions of life here, though I myself cannot see much difference ; but, then, women are more sharpwitted than mere man, and see things that we don’t. Personally, I have met the greatest kindness, and made personal friends I highly value ; but an observer cannot close his eyes to the fact that there is a great deal of shallowness and glossed-over poverty, which the casual traveller never sees. There are hundreds who are living on one meal a day, and scores entirely on hotel counter lunches.” An optimistic view, truly, of the one-time Golden West!