"To-day, Canberra enters upon the New Year deep in the spell of the depressing atmosphere which envelopes practically every class of circumstance of the Australian people," ran the editorial of The Canberra Times on this day 90 years ago.
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"Yet in this depressed atmosphere there is no occasion for despair. There is rather ground for the belief that the worst period has been passed and there is plenty of room for hopes that Canberra may commence even during the year of uncertainty ahead to progress towards the goal which it has been promised so often and in such definite terms by more than one Government."
The city had been divided into those public servants who had escaped the worst effects of the depression and others who had struggled. All the while, political efforts to scuttle the new capital raged on.
The editorial continued: "From a national standpoint, the year 1931 may be notable for Canberra in that the present ill conceived efforts to scrap the capital may be exposed with all their fallacies and hasty conclusions. When Parliament and the people of Australia realise that an uncompleted Canberra is a waste of money, but that a completed job is a worthwhile asset, the present tendency to blame Canberra for the condition of the Commonwealth may begin to undergo some reconstruction, and the people who have failed to push on and finish Canberra may be rightly blamed for their false economy."