AUSTRALIA. TO-BAY.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15465, 18 December 1915, Page 2

AUSTRALIA. TO-BAY.

PASSPORTS

(raoii ora ovrx correspondent.)

SYDNEY, December 8

Mention was modo in these notes last week of what seemed anomalies in the full application to travellers between Australia and New Zealand only of the passport regulations designed to prevent unpatriotic males of military ago from bolting abroad to America and elsewhere. It appears to many horo that some special arrangements might well be made between the Commonwealth and Dominion Governments, in order to allow of a reasonable- continuance of the desirable exchange of visits of health and friendship between Australian and New Zealand residents who have no idea of evading national obligations or to clear out of cither the Dominion or Australia. Events arc proving that the complcto application of the regulations here to visitors from New Zealand, coupled with official dilatorinoss. is causing such avoidable annoyance and inconvenience. For instance, New Zcalandcrs who have been permitted to rim across to us for visits on passports issued by tho Dominion authorities, iind when they seek to book their return passages that they must go through the whole of the passport business again here before they are accepted as passengers for the home-ward trip. They havo to fill in : ; nd lodgo passport applications which require them to answer all sorts of personal questions, j'-ist as though they wore aliens or potential spies, and two photographs of the applicant arc also required to be supplied. Nor is this confined to male's. Women have to do the same, to their great surprise and annoyance. What makes matters worse is that the Government officials, in some cases mere youths, who handle these applications for passports, scorn unable to ensure such expedition as will avoid very awkward delay and expense to visitors who innocently believed that they had put themselves quite op tho right side when they secured passports in tho Dominion* for tho trip across the Tasman Sea to their Australian friends, and that tho Now Zealand passports would bo sufficient for the return journey from Australia. There arc at present held up in Sydney .1 number of New Zcalandcrs who had n ade arrangements to leave on the return trip by tho steamer which sails to-morrow. Tliev were taken aback when thev found that thov had to start from scratch as'applicants for passports, with pjiotographs and a fee of five shillings a head, before thev could get o?i board a homeward bound steamer, and found also that tho Commonwealth officials were unable to got tho. passports out in three or four davs' time I'hcsc hold-up visitors are promised nothing better than that tho Australian passports may be ready for them in tunc- to allow of their departure by next week s .steamer.

I3ETTIXG TAX. A n # aggravation of govornmcntal imancial problems arising out of the war has furnished another argument to tho many people i„ New South Hales -who have been agitating day in and day out for years nast for'the legalisation of the totalisator. , There is moro horse racing in New South VUles than in any other State, in fact as much, as in all the other States pnt together. But tho bookmakers continue to enjoy a rich monopoly of the profits from netting.' Very unkind tilings, which it -would b© libellous to pnt into public print, aro said about the influence which is exercised on some politicians by the bookmakin" fraternity to keep tho totalisator out. Every time tho Premier and Treasurer. Mr Holman. talks about the great difficulty of makincr financial ends meet, the advocates of the totalisator demand afresh to know why .Air Holman persists m the refusal to gather in a lot of much-needed revenue through tho 'tote, as is done in other States. Mr Holman says he i s opnosod on principle TO giving govermentej •recognition, by the legalisaticn of the totalisator, to the bcLtmg habits of Australians. But theio are manv cynics who sav that Mr Holman is afraid to offend the manv voters represented by the bookmokinVr section and their friends and the gambling crusades. As one can imagine these cynics are not at al] silenced 1-i * M,n,stc » , ial announcement that while there is no intention of introducing the totalizator, it is intended to raise revenue by moans of a tax on the betting tickets issued bv bookmakers The vcheme is that each bettiii" ticket shall carry a penny dutv stamp"? In addition it is proposed that there shall be a license tax on bookmakersa deduction from lees which racin* clubs and proprietaries receive from bookmakers; and a special impost on paddock bookmakers to represent a tax on booked bets between them and the heavy p U „tcr S . It amounts to this — the bookmakers are to have ~ continued monopoly, and the betting pub'iMill have to pay the tax.

HIS MONUMENT Thero are but few now, even amon -t the most intense _\e, v South Welshmen, who want.the Commonwealth to proceed with tho expenditure of hueo sums of money on tfie building of the already begun new Federal "capital? within New South Wales territory One of the few U Mr King OMallev, recently restored by the Commonwealth ister for Home Affairs. If there is one project dear to the heart of Mr U :UalJey, and his advertisement-loving mind, it is that of building a magnificent city with which his name shall be associated. His desires in this direction went to the length of a suggestion bv him, unfortunately unsuccessful for the bestowal upon the Federal capital territory, called Canberra, of a new name made up of the letters of his own name. He has t 0 be watched pretty closely by his colleagues and the Press, lest his longing to "lorify Australia, and incidentally Mr°King O/Malley, does not lead to "his committing us to an expenditure in a direction which wo cannot afford to foliow ",°*\ f J* was pt!,t£?d thc «thcr dav in the Melbourne Press that Mr O'Maiicv had ordered plans for the building at Canberra of a magnificent "rapitoi." winch is admittedly the summit of his architectural ambitious. But he =ays this is not true, and pleads that what he has discussed of late with the imported designer of the Federal capital r.:id the chief Commonwealth architect has consisted of oniv "outside genoA? Ht Bn , t " U ' not ' lcniflf J t-hat .Mr U .Mailer has driven orders for plans for other big buildings at the Federal capital, and his colleagues in the Ministry are being implored to stop Iris energies in this direction if they can. IMPOSTORS. Jt would seem that despite the considerable amount of ill-will caused by the recent round-up at night of all the men in military uniform to be found in tho streets of Sydney has bedn justifieri by results. Apart from the discovery of cases in which soldier.s from training camps had left the camns without leave, it was found that'at least 3-5 reen were going about in military uniform which they had no right to'wear. Those impostors were not soldiers, and had never been in a military camp. One of the worst cases of imposition was that of a man who had one of his legs bandaged u:> and used crutches, pretending that he had been "wounded by shrapnel. Actually he had never been outside of Sydney, and had spent

a good deal of time in gaol- Another posed as a blind soldier who had lost his sight in Gallipoli. He was not a soldier, nor was ho blind, and he had never been anywhere near Gallipoli. Now that the genuine soldiers who -were gathered in during tho "round-up" know what dangerous fish were actually netted tor and were caught, the? are more oleased than they were at first over the engagement by the civil and military police in the affair. .. AUSTRALIA'S FORCES. II it v.-ere ndt for the fact that, according to otliciai deckuations made alter a survey of the results of the recent war census, it would seem that the Commonwealtii Government had set up a prcttv formidable task in making the olfer "10 endeavour to bring the strength of the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Forces up to 300,000 by June next. Up to the end of last month 17J.531 men had been enlisted lor these forces. Of these, 118,890 had left the Commonwealth for active scrvice abroad, and 30,301 were in training in Australia. To bring the total to 300.C00, over 123,000 men would have to bo enlisted in tho next seven months. This would embraci; tho sending foiwnrd of the present quota of reinforcements at the rate of» SJ-3UO a month, the raising of new units «rad the provision of their reinforcements. The Prime Minister states that matter* are well in train f.-ii- (.ho full launching very scon of his fjchome of organised appeals all over Australia for fresh recruits for the redemption of the Federal Government's undertaking to the Imperial authon- | ties. In connexion with this appeal, it is intended to utilise the services of 10-jal governing bodies as well as of Government officials mid prominent privf.te citizens, as well as returned sol- I tiers, in personal interviews fflii rrp;raruit* in repaid io everx- mm who is j deemed fit nM reasonably free to go into the fightinrr line. j