RURAL PROBLEM.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19163, 21 November 1927, Page 9

RURAL PROBLEM.

* IN NEW SOUTH WALES. CITY AND COUNTRY INTERESTS. . (fbok otra owx cobbespokmskt.) SYDNEY, November JO. There were not a few in the Country Party who believed very strongly that, although it helped the Nationalists into office, it should have maintained its separate entity. It certainly could, by that means, have kept the new Government in a constant state of dread, but now that it is definitely part and parcel of the Composite Ministry, it will not merely ask for) but will demand, perhaps not during the present brief session which has just opened, but later, many reforms without which, itis felt, the country cannot be rehabilitated. If representatives of the Country Press are to be accepted as authority—they certainly ought to know something about the matter—country towns in New South Wales are faced generally with a most depressing outlook, largely because of the fact that they are without secondary industries, and that the overloading of the city population is placing altogether too much political and economic power in the hands of Sydney, at the expense of the country. The Premier (Mr Bavin) is betweea the devil and the deep sea. The Railway Commissioners, on the one hand, arc insistently demanding increased freights and fares. Bural interests, on the other hand, which are not a negligible factor in the present ment, are demanding equally emphatically a revision of freights, which means, of course, reduced freights, in plain English. If the country does not get something substantial out of the present Government, it will have a good deal to say to the Party which represents it on the Treasury benches. That New South Wales is faced with a period of strict economy, especially if it is to meet its commitments to those who elected it, is absolutely certain. It is not inconceivable that, in the process, there will be some retrenchment, although the Government is too diplomatic to say anything about that just now.