SYDNEY DISTRESS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1931, Page 6

SYDNEY DISTRESS

WHAT THE NEW ZEALAND FOOTBALLERS SAW. (By Telegraph-—Per Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 15/ “ Over in Sydney the depression is like the Hawkes Ray earthquake was in New Zealand. It is the one topic of conversation,” said Mr F. W. Pet re, the manager of the New Zealand University Rugby team, which returned from Australia by tile's.s. Makura tlii s morning.

In Sydney, said Mr Petre, evidence of hard times was to lie seen everywhere, and many of the people that one met in the streets bore the appearance of being out of work. Mr Petre paid a visit to the Naval Dockyard at Cockatoo Island, and he found that where formerly about 4000 men were found in regular employment there, only one-tenth of this number are now working. A new lighthouse steamer was just being completed and when that job was finished, there would be more men to join the unemployed. At the Richmond Aerodrome, where there were usually about forty men employed, there were only two men. Flying had been cut right down, and the men were engaged mainly in repair work on the “Wapitis” anti “Seagulls.” The Wapiti is a twoseater observation aeroplane, and the Seagull is a naval seaplane.

Mr Petre had met Air Commodore Kingsford-Smith. who told him that tile aviation companies were losing monev heavilv, especially on the S.vd-nev-Melbourne run.