AUSTRALIA

Hokitika Guardian, 25 October 1929, Page 7

AUSTRALIA

ViISITORS IMPRESSIONS. r*.* s y ir *' * & r-V vr ’*' ? * : . 1; •* —<• •: '*;>/ '• v. ■Speaking of political conditions, whatever party was in power, said a returned Aucklander, Mr Meggitt, Australia steadily forged ahead. No politician, and no drought could affect the result. Much capital had been made by a section of the people out of .the fact that, of 1000 men who had returned for their jobs after the timber strike, only ten were employed, but it had not been sufficiently noted that other men hid v 7 s '~ been put on in the strikers' places in the interval. . Australia had a big working puDelation, continued Mr Meggitt, and* there were never more than 2 per cent out of employment. Strikes, though deplorable, were not as bad in their effects as was often described, and. wherever employment was given by men or concerns used to handling men, there was never any chance of a strike occurring. Speaking of Empire trade 1 , Mr Meggitt said he would like to se both Australia and New ' Zealand put inordinately high duties on American goods. Australia was jl suffering, with New Zealand, i" <!,n .the, "high tariff wall maintained by f 1” He had advocated a high 18-iff (against' American/ gpods for many years, and urged that a campaign should be taken up by business men. Mr. Mackenzie, of Auckland, who * fSturned from a holiday visit to

Sydney, said business people considered. business conditions worse than they had been for 50 years. (Speaking of the timber strike, he said there had been a conference between Mr J. Scull in, the new Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, and representative timber workers, and tli9 men had been advised to .report back ‘to work. A thousand men were affected, and only ten were placed in jobs. Criticism had been heard on all sides, said Mr Mackenzie, that if Labour won the elections it would mean disaster for Australia, and the same people were now saying: ‘‘Live Labour a chance; the others were no good, anyhow.” Referring to the drought in the West, Mr Mackenzie mentioned the case of a squatter in the Rmirke district, who had been hand-feeding 10.0 CO sheep, and it was a rommentarv on the conditions in the droughtstricken districts that sheep had become too weak for mustering. Mon had to go out to the fields and shear them in the paddocks.