PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 59, 7 September 1926, Page 11

PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES.

In their monthly notes, under date 16th August, Messrs. A. B. S. White and Co., stock and share brokers, Sydney, report: "A large proportion of companies make up their annual accounts to the end of June, and In consequence many concerns have published reports and balance-sheets during the past two or three weeks, while further balance-sheets are looked for in the early future. The profits «f some of the companies which have already issued balance-sheets disclosed such marked variations from those of previous years that it Is by no means easy to discern what the general trend has been. All the banks, for instance, show Improved profits, as do some financial concerns, while a few other companies were also able to disclose higher earnings. On the ether hand, some important companies have not fared so well, such as coal mining companies, gas companies, and a number of manufacturing and other industrial enterprises. The higher wages costs, due to the increase of 2s per week in the basic wage in August, 1925, and the introduction of the forty-four-hour week at the beginning of this year, and the protracted strike in the coal-mining Industry, have undoubtedly been responsible for lower profits in some cases. As the higher wages costs referred to will rule throughout the wholo of the current year. Instead of only portion, as in the case of the year ended In June last, and as costs will be further Increased by the Workers' Compensation Act and any increase made to the basic wage (regarded as a likely contingency), the difficulties of Industrialists are by no meaua all past. In these circumstances it is indeed fortunate that the seasonal prospects for the period which must necessarily elapse while industrialists are endeavouring to adjust their prices in keeping with, higher costs, are favourable."