AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1926, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

[Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.s PROGRESS!VE SYDXEY. SYDNEY, May 1. Sydney claims to be the second white city in tho British Empire. The city assessor has completed statistics showing the development of recent years. Tho unimproved value of Sydney in 1895, when tho first valuation of the city was made, was approximately ten million sterling. This to January Ist, 1924, increased to 44J millions. The improved valued increased in that time from fifty-three million to 141 million. The assessor claims a further considerable development will lie shown next year when a revaluation again takes place. New buildings at present being constructed in the city represent an outlay of 2:i million. BASIC WAGE. MELBOURNE, May 1. According to figures compiled by the Commonwealth bureau, census and statistics based on retail prices. food, groceries, and rent for the quarter ended thirty-first March increased.ln tho basic wage to take effect all States from to-day tho increases vary from four shillings weekly at Perth, to a shilling at Adelaide and Melbourne. The basic wage now varies from 13s Id daily and £4 Is (Id weekly at Perth to 14s 7d and £4 11s fid at Sydney, whore the increase was two shillings. N.S.AY. POSITION. SYDXEY, May 2. It is estimated that between thirty and forty thousand employees in the engineering shops of the State of Now South Wales will be rendered idle to-morrow, if tho employers carry into effect their decision to discharge all their employees who refuse to work the forty-eight hour week. Tho actual conflict between the Employers and tho Unions in iron trades over the forty-eight-bour week in the Federal Arbitration Court Awards as against the New South Wales 44-hour week law. began yesterday. It is estimated five hundred engineering workshops in the state of Now South Wales, employing twenty thousand men, were to-day thrown idle. The whole of those men concerned were dismissed. At the Clyde Engineering Works, eight hundred engineers, boilermakers, ironworkers, and moulders absented themselves, but members of ilie Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s l uions tinned up ready to work, on a forty-eight hours basis.