AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17756, 7 May 1923, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT.

GROWING ANXIETY.

(rBOII OUX OTO COERISPOHBIHT.) SYDNEY, April 25.

The almost Australia-wide dry con- 1 ditions that have long prevailed are giving riso to increased anxiety. In many parts of New South Wales it is difficult even to.give-away store cattle, and to send them down to the city market at Homebush fails in many cases to pay even the freight and selling costs. In South Australia as well as New South Wales the ordinary railway services are being interiered with in order to meet the growing need lor water trains, hundreus of which are running daily, in .New South Wales there has been a 50 per cent, reduction of freight charges for fodder to the stricken areas, starting from Monday of this week. Many grazing people in the worst areas have disposed of all the stock that they are unable to longer.' maintain and with the'money thus obtained put on deposit are merely marking time on empty properties for the conditions to show a decisive change. The weather during the past couple of weekß has been., exasperatingly perverse. On the narrow north .coast dairying strip" of New South Wales — a ribbon about 100 mlTes broad lying between the sea and the great dividing range—up to seven inches have fallen in a few days, and the falls have penetrated as far south as tne city of Svdney, though in much less volume. Yet beyond the range vast tracts remain as dry as a bone, and even the city catchment area, which lies on the south coast watershed, has failed to benefit at all. This latter consideration has promoted something in the nature of a panic on the Water Board. Hurried investigations are being carried out with a view to laying a pipe line about eight miles from the Upper Nepean to one of the reservoirs as an emerg- | ency measure to ward off an absolute i water famine which, if nothing were ! done and no substantial rain fell in I the meantime, would occur in less than j nine months. The Board is also con- : sidering extending the already stnngent restrictions on the use of water to shower baths ajd other *£»••*£. general.