AUSTRALIA’S PROSPERITY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3360, 28 October 1911, Page 2

AUSTRALIA’S PROSPERITY.

never more pronounced

AN INTERESTING' INTERVIEW

/.SPECIAL TO HUES .3

A UCKLAN D, Oct. 27. Mr Neill Neilsen, ex-Minister of Lauds, in N.S.W., arrived in Auckland to-day by the s.s. Marama en route to America. Interviewed, Mr Neilsen declined to say anything about the political bear garden which he had just left, remarking that he preferred not to discuss party politics because of the nature of his mission to the United States. The ex-Minister admitted, however, that there should not be an election until well into next year. An appeal to the electors would then be advisable, because the electoral boundary commissioners would by that time have completed the rearrangement of electoral boundaries. N.fe’.W. sends 90 members to its State Parliament, and it has now been decided to divide the electorates so as to give 90 seats a quota of 10,000 each. The unruly scenes winen have marked the progress of the present session, Mr Xeilson thinks are ovti. A good deal will attach to the result of the two by-elections, which are to take place to-morrow. If the Government wins one of them, they will have a majority of three in the House. H they capture both it will mean a lead of five, for both the electorates were previously represented by Oppositionists. New South Wales at the present time, declared Air Neilson, is experiencing a period of great prosperity. A bumper harvest is assured, good rains having fallen in time to save the wheat crop. ° The new season’s wool is fast filling the wool stores, and will be the biggest clip on record. _ With the financial barometer indicating good prices, the outlook is particularly bright for the farmer. In Sydney business is wonderfully brisk, the building trade is more active than Mr Neilsen has ever known it to be, and prosperity is general. “Since we have had a Labor Government in office we have not had to float a loan in London,” he added. “We can sell more treasury bills over the counter than we care to offer. Notwithstanding the fact that we are pursuing the most active public works policy the. State has ever known, business people have every confidence in the Government, and Sir Allen Taylor, Mayor of Sydney, recently gave it aS his opinion that New South Wales has never been better governed than at present. Mr Neilsen preferred not to discuss the Sydney strike, but said that at an early date the Wages Boards would go. and a new Arbitration Act, the most up-to-date legislation of its kind in the world, giving preference to unionists, would be introduced. Mr Neilsen goes to America to inquire into the question of irrigation and immigration, as well as the appointment of a Trades Commissioner bn the West Coast.