STRIKE EFFECTS WILL LAST A YEAR

Chronicle (Levin), 14 July 1949, Page 5

STRIKE EFFECTS WILL LAST A YEAR

Received "Wednesday, 7 p.m. ; .• s ■ SYDNEY, July 13. Sig'bts which noa Australian has seen since 1932,. are now' part of- the daiI-$ life in the cities and manufacturing districts of the , Commomvealth. • . A , In Sydney patient queues of eitizens with stolid/ hopeless fa'ees, move slowly towards desks in offiees lighted by hurricane lamps, to register f or- unemployment relief . ^ Wealthy Newcastle nien and women ean be seen in their hundreds pieking over the ground about lopg abandoned workings aild dumps in the hope of filling siigarbags with precious fuel. Tliese and other signs are forcing every Australian* to wonder whether Australian economy can long stand the expenaive idleness which the strike has impdsed upon nearly •twoAfiffhs of the Commonwealth 's army of workers. So f ar the strike has cost £15, 000, 000 in wages and £45,000,000 in outnut. ' /'

Vital production Iosses so far ificlucle 750,000 tons of coal, 75,000 tons oi steel and at lcast 1200 houses. Thougli only one-sixthr of the total unemployed are drawihg relief and then only at the rate of 25& weekly for single men and £2 5s weekly for married couples, the weekly . unemploynlent relief ' bik alone will soon feach -£250,000. With staffs 6f offices aiul large stores being curtailed and hours and wage.,o>f other emploj'ees redueed, it is believed that saturation point of . miemploy Iment is approaching — ^and ^this is a lcountry which,- a month ago, was grave ;ly short of man-power. Migrants ! brought into Australia in niass sehemes becailse of ,the vital necessity to inerease the labour foree, are now either living on^ their meagre savings or being supported in camps at Government expense. From now on Australia will suiter a weekly production loss of 250,000 tons of coal, 400 houses, 7,000,000 bricks, 600,000 tiles, 25,000 tons of steel and 20,000 tons of pigiron. Heavily industrialised ISTew South Wales, with more tlian half it labour force out of* employment, has already lost £38,500,000 in production and wages. Experts sa-y that if the strike ended to-morrow, the miners could begin eatning again immediately biit tens of thousands of other workers would be unemployed for months to come. Damage has already been done Which will take over a year to repair. The liey to the resumption of industry is steel. For the fa'st time in 30 years, the blast furnaces are eold and the fires havc been drawn in open hearths and roiling mills. Even before the strike, according to an estimate by a noted economist, Profcssor Douglas Copland, Australian industry was operating Only 70 per cent of its capicity — for want of 750,000 tons more coal tlian was bein'g pr'oduced. • Australians ask: "Can Australia recover ouickly enough to avoid the cofise^nences of a depression more serious than that which loomed 20 years ago'.7"