DEPRESSION IN SYDNEY

Otago Witness, Issue 4032, 23 June 1931, Page 48

DEPRESSION IN SYDNEY

HARD TIMES EVERYWHERE A VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS. WELLINGTON, June 15. Over in Sydney the depression is like the Hawke’s Bay earthquake was in New Zealand. It is the one topic of conversation, said Mr F. W. Petre, manager of the New Zealand University Rugby team which returned from Australia by the Makura this morning. In Sydney, said Mr Petre, evidence of hard times is to be seen everywhere, and many of the people met with in the streets bore the appearance of being out of work. Mr Petre paid a visit to the naval dockyard at Cockatoo Island and found that where formerly about 4000 men were found regular employment only one-tenth of this number is working. The new lighthouse steamer was-being completed, and when that job was finished there would be more men to join the unemployed. At Richmond aerodrome, where there were usually about 40 men employed, there were only two. Flying had been cut right down and the men were engaged mainly in repair work on the Wapitis and the Seagulls. The Wapiti was a two-seater observation aeroplane and the Seagull was a naval seaplane. Mr Petrie had met Air Commodore Kingsford Smith, who had told him that the aviation companies were losing money heavily, especially on the Sydney-Mel--1 bourne run.