EFFICIENCY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18659, 7 April 1926, Page 2

EFFICIENCY.

AUSTRALIA'S NEED. MARKETING PROBLEMS. (MOM OCR OW* COBHBSFOKDWM SYDNEY, March 19. In several speeches lately, the heads of the Federal Government, the Prime Minister, Mr Bruce, and the Treasurer, Dr. Earle Page, havo emphasised the greatest need of Australia as efficiency in production, transport, and marketing. In his latest important, speech, that before the annual conference of the-Associated Chambers of Commerce of Australia in Sydney- this week, Mr Bruce laid it down that "the gospel of efficiency should be preached by every Australian who loves his country and desires to see it great in the future, and the people happy and prosperous." , In this speech, Mr Bruce dealt with the question of efficiency from three different standpoints, efficiency in production, in transport, and in marketing. He indicated that the first-named was necef-sary if full advantage was to be taken of the artificial aids to.industry, sucli as tariffs, bounties, and subsidies. In regard to the second, he emphasised how his Government was endeavouring to aid transport .by its national road policy, and by solving the break of gauge railway problem, and hinted that further efforts to. simplify transport, .would be made by asking the State Governments' co-operation in alleviating the charges on shipping by harbour and port dues. He particularly attacked the system ' by which all the commerce flowed through the capital cilies. In regard to marketing, Mr Bruce said that producers and distributors were valuable national assets, but' added that the present method of distribution was based on. a wrong principle, as it was more designed to serve the. interests of the speculator than to conserve the'rights of the producer and consumer, and to ensure ii fair return to the legitimate .distributor. "I ask for your co-operation and the assistance of your great organisation," concluded Mr Bruce, "I ask you to give a lead to the. nation. I ask you to give that lead down lines that will ensure the benefit of tie' whole 1 of the people, and in' doing so be forgetful of your own individual and personal interests." Trade and Politics. It was interesting" to compare Mr Bruce's remarks with those of Sir Lennon Raws (president of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Chambers), made an hour or two before the Prime Ministers. The feature of his address was his emphasis of the need for disentangling trade and finance from politics. "If conditions have reached a stage in Australia," he said, "that demand an increasing degree of Government. interference; if we have the conception that progress can come from inhibition, from the elimination or restriction of the more- enterprising and efficient, by the substitution of. bureaucracy for private enterprise, then we havo lost the virile spirit of our forefathers, and are being drugged into lethargy by false prophets. There is nothing reactionary in combating these tendencies; there is nothing _ antisocial. Those who are anti-social are i those who are spreading "the doctrine that bureaucracy can bring about better conditions than can be % achieved by personal initiative and enterprise. They divert attention from the real problems, or. think that a high standard of living can be maintained without high personal efficiency all along the lin&> eucb ideas are part of the legacy of the war, when everyone came under the drillsergeant, when efficiency was sacrificed to regimentation, when bureaucracy

ruled supreme. There was, said Wir Lennon Raws, continual dissatisfaction primary aud secondary industries, and most of the causes of complaints arose from Governments. Higher costs of production were duo in partT.o the operations of Arbitration Courts, excessive taxation, and to increased eosts of Government services. Referring to the dairying industry, he said that the problem in dairying was the educating of the dairyman to cultivate his land properly, to improve the. standard of his herds, to feed them properly, and to increase their productivity. Was there, he asked, tho remotest connexion between these problems and stabilisation schemes, export control boards, and bonuses? Were those who advocated such schemes true friends of the dairyman—were they not his enemies, because they diverted his attention from, ■the real problem?