A "BANKRUPT" STATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 294, 10 December 1923, Page 4

A "BANKRUPT" STATE.

Tasmania figures less frequently in our news than most of the mainland States, but last week it broke out "on the front page/ as our American friends would say, with a cry for help lest it perish financially. If only because this island is the home of the great Australasian sweepstakes, from which the Government derives quite a large income, the troubles of Tasmania should be interesting to New Zealanders. Recently the Premier of Tasmania announced that the deficit for the year was nearly £300.000, and that even with drastic economics, further taxation was necessary. His Government was turned out. and a few days ago his successor, the Leader of a Labour Government, went to Melbourne and begged the Federal Treasurer for a direct gift to save- the State from bankruptcy. The Commonwealth already pays to Tasmania, in addition to the subsidy the island receives in common with all the other States, a special subsidy of £8.5.000. and now the Premier asks for another contribution exceeding £150,000. It is rare indeed that a State confesses, to being on the verge of bankruptcy. An outsider, looking at statistics, may doubt whether the term accurately describes the position. Tasmania's taxation per head for 1921-----22 — the latest figures available — was £10 10/10, which was much leee than thr £17 7/6 of New South Wales, the £16 4/8 of Queensland, the £!•"> 11/o of South Australia, and the £22 15/10 of Western Australia. It is true that Tasmania is a email community—the population at last census was only 213.000—and that its in- j; dustrial development is not so forward j, as that of some of the other States,; which means that there is not so much t wexlth to tax. It has suffered lately. i from a decline in mining; the produc-|, tion of minerals, after averaging: £1 .SOO.OOO for twenty years, fell to I €854,000 in 1921-22."Tasmanians com- j! plain that federation has cost them a , good deal. Tasmania, however, is:. the home of quite a number of j industries, and i<. should be able to pay I its way. There is no proof that it has suffered through recent economic disturbances much more than the other '' [ States. The Federal Treasurer may give i some more help, but he is just as likely '. to tell the Premier that Tasmania | must balance her Budget by her own efforts of taxation and economy. j. " J Except for a light shower yesterday!' morning, the weather during the week- j end was fine, and all spc.:s and picnics j : were held under ideal conditions. Yes- | terday broke with the sky dull and threatening, and light rain commenced to fall about 10 o'clock. Within an hour, however, the sky had cleared, and the conditions for the remainder of the day proved most enjoyable. Six hours 10 minutes of bright sunshine were j recorded, making the total for the' week-end fifteen hours forty minutes, i The wind, which was from the south- j east yesterday morning, veered round, I end at 9 o'clock this morning was due | west, with the barometer standing at j 30.24 in. The rain experienced yester-1 day represented a fall of -Olin, being the I first fall for the present month. When the sugar workers' dispute was mentioned at the Arbitration Court thi* morning. Mr. J. Purtell, secretary of the union, suggested that before the'dispute was heard it might be advisable if the Court visited the works at Chelsea. The Court decided to make th<> visit this afternoon. t 1

There is an old Scottish saying,'"Sic mannic. sic horsie," which means in plain English that if you saw a poor roan riding along a road he usually has an old horse to correspond with his own condition of life, and so it was with the Stanley Bay boat on Saturday afternoon which brought the 1.20 people from the city. It was dead low water when the old "Eagle crawled across the harbour. Arrived at the jetty ehe was down amongst the "toredo" eaten piles which were fully exposed to view and her deck was fully eight feet below the surface of the wharf, and what wae worst of all there were a large number of ladies on board and for the first time in the memory of the oldest traveller J aboard, who claimed that lie had crossed j and recrossed on the ferry boats for I o\er half n century, there wae no , gangway aboard! The position was j desprratc, and even the most agile I "gay young Lothario" could not see hie ; way to climb up amongst the •cockles j I and "mussels' , on to the wharf, clasping j to his breast a thinly clad, short-skirted maiden who wae anxious to get ashore to attend a tennie match. "Necessity is the mother of invention." and a big tank j was taken from its place and put in position and that was the first step of an improvised stairway, and it was between three and four "feet high! Then other articles were put on top of it till the steps reached right up to the landing. It was a slow process unloading the boat and much gallantry was displayed; on a picnic day it might have been a most interesting adventure, but when men and women are hurrying home to get to their various recreations Saturday's experience was exasperating, and it seemed as if anything was good enough for the old wharf and the stationary gangway on account of the low tide was useless. It was the old saying, •'Sic mannic, sic horsie." A Huntiy miner, Thomas Connelly, who wae a passenger by one of the trains from the race meeting at Claudelands. Hamilton, on Saturday evening, had a narrow escape from serious injury. He boarded a return train that did not

stop at hie station, and between Mercer and Huntly he fcli from the train in some way not yet explained. The fall resulted in his being a good deal bruised and shaken up, and he was brought on to the Auckland Hospital, where it wae found that no serious injury had been suffered by the patient. "Any advance on 6/ for the Rotomahana?" asked the auctioneer at a sale at the Union Company's works at Port Chalmers says the "Dunedin Star." As there was no further advance forthcoming the ex-grej-hound of the R«d Funnel fleet changed hands at the I modest figure mentioned. Of course, it was not the old ship herself. It was tho 'builders' scale model, or, rather, half ' model, mounted on a big polished board. And it was a natty piece of workmanship, apart from the element of sentiment attaching to oldtime memories of jthe Rotomahana's youthful prowess in j flashing spray and snapping speed records. It was because those days were J past and much disused ship fittings had ; meanwhile accumulated at the comIpany's works that the clearance sale was held recently. Every kind of fitting seemed to be represented in the numerous "lots, -, which found a ready sale at various prices. Old brass, ranging in I past purpose from fancy candlestick to I hinged hatch batten, was sold mostly by weight, fetching up to s£d lb. That was tile best selling line. Messrs. Park. [Reynolds, who conducted the gale, said lat its close that good value had been J realised for the hundreds of "lots" which J had been auctioned during that afterinoon. Judging by what Dr. Kahlenbtrg. of Gisborne, saw on his recent tour of Britain, the unemployment difficulty ia. unhappily, quite as bad as it has been painted in the press messages sent out to this Dominion. The most pathetic aspect of the trouble, he told a reI porter, was the nnormous number of ex- ! servicemen who had. perforne. to remain !on the li3ts of the idle. Just ac Gerj man bands need to wander through New ] Zealand twenty or thirty years ago. so do band.ii comprising partfally disabled lor workless soldiers travel up" and down I Britain, playing in the streets and tak- , ing up collections. It was heart-rending to listen to the hard luck stories told by some of the married unemployed soldiers who were prepared to do anything for a cruet. He had been told by one of them that all that he could to do was to take over a. street newspaper stand for an hour at night whilst its "proprietor" went for his dinner. And the temporary newspaper vendor was a [ married man with four children.

Some North Shore resident* wh» motored with the Mayor of Devonport to the Waitakeres on Sunday were much struck with the interesting avifauna which they found there. It is said that there are forty-five distinct species of New Zealand bird life, and that no fewer than thirty-eight of these are purely endemic, and the Waitakeres must contain a fair percentage of these. Yesterday morning; rather a heavy shower fell between 10 and 11 o'clock and after such a long dry spell the birds seemed to revel in the drops which fell upon them from the upper branches of the trees upon which they were perched. The bush gave forth varied sweet notes from full throats, and after they had had their bath on their leafy bowers, there was a continuous song of praise which was the wonder of all who were privileged to hear it. Those who knew the different notes, picked out the birds who gave forth the sweet sounds and the listeners were lulled into a stillness from which not one jarring note came. That so near the largest city in the Dominion such a large amount of bird life should exist is very cheering to those who want to eec our native birds protected. There is a good deal of ignorance amongst thoughtless people regarding the birds which are by law protected and we know that in certain parts the protection of native birds is a dead letter. It would seem that one of the most effective ways of stopping the destruction of bird life would be for the matter to be taken up in our public schools, so that the young people would get an enthusiasm for the protection of the feathered tribes that there would be no withstanding it. The birds seen at the Waitakeres on Sunday under sucli favourable conditions, show that the food supplies in the way of berries from the native bush must be very plentiful and that the birds are quite content i« their natural surroundings.

With the present spell of dry weather grass fires have become common, and the fire brigade has been called out several times during the week to attend to such outbreaks. A fire of the kind at Emily Place between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday necessitated attention by two firemen, and an outbreak in Taylor's Road, Morningside, about the same time caused a turn-out of the Mount Albert brigade, as the fire looked like spreading dangerously close to houses in the vicinity. Just after 10 a.m. yesterday the city brigade had a call to the corner of Queen and Wakcfield Streets, where an electric cable under the pavement had fused.