AUSTRALIA'S NEW CAPITAL.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19154, 10 November 1927, Page 18

AUSTRALIA'S NEW CAPITAL.

JIBES AT CANBERRA. BY MELBOURNE NEWSPAPERS. i (thoh ora own coßßßjrojTDErr.) SYDNEY, October Ti. The Federal Parliament has been in session at Canberra, Australia's new capital, for nearly a month now, and its members and the newspaper correspondents, who are their mouthpieces, have been summing up impressions. Sydney has adopted Canberra as its owo, and treats'it with the kindly indulgence of a parent for its child. But Melbourne, robbed of the glory and profit of being Australia's capital, is amusingiy jealous and openly badtempered about it. Melbourne has always adopted that attitude towards the new capital, and the emergence of Canberra from a nebulous state to one of realitv has enhanced its bad feeling. The special representative of one Melbourne newspaper, the "Age," wrote recently: "As soon as the House of Representatives meets each afternoon, Ministers are rushed with questions about tho inconvenience and distressful conditions at Canberra. It is strange that members who used to talk about the 'glories' of this city are now in the front rank of those who deplore its unwortliiuess to be the political centre of a. great Commonwealth. The buses, the telephones, the trains, the miles of distance between one point and another, and the magnificent spaces surrendered to the vagaries of k few sheep because the intervening country will, in centuries to come, be needed for houses and lakes, harass the Government." The other Melbourne morning dai y, the "Argus" dwells on what it calls the "all-powerful" commission—the Federal Capital Commission which is in charge of all building operations at Canberra, and until the Parliament rules otherwise, all civic government. The truth is that the Commission has been doing wonderful work, and still is, but Melbourne propagandists are deprecating its efforts. In a long article on the Commission, whose bureaucratic powers are gently scoffed at, the "Argus" correspondent endeavours to prove that while Parliament is always the ruler and arbiter where th© Commission is concerned, the Commission in reality rules even Parliament. He shows how the work of the Commission affects every resident in the territory, and does all the work, even down to the weeding of bowling greens, how it supplies all the incentive to development, and, in doing so, how it has become the autocrat of the territory. The article maintains that if Canberra is to | be a city in the proper sense of the term, it will soon become unwieldy for this form of- civic government. In truth, there are a few grievances which residents of Canberra can legitimately put forward. Like all Federal territories, residents of Canberra are not enfranchised, nor have they any ratepayers' privileges. The other great grievance is that the territory is a "dry" area, while a few miles away, across the New South' Wales border at Quoanbeyan, there are palatial bars, equal to the best in Sydney, where oceans of liquor can be bought, lint these grievances are merely growing pains. Parliament has the power to right them, and, when the time is ripe, they will be righted, no doubt. In the meantime, people and newspapers broader-minded than those of Victoria are giving Canberra a chance to prove itself before condemning it.

marvel.over a number of "Volunteers, who are firing a rifle at something down a long tin spout—the prizes being huts—which is next to a wheel of fortune and ginger-beer stall, and horses, and'babies in arms, and carts of all descriptions piled up in inextricable confusion.

"Pay Here, Please!" Up to 1874 there had been no charge for admission to the course itself, but in that year the Riecarton Racecourse Ordinance was passed by the Provincial Council, empowering the Jockey Club to charge for admission. Therefore, on arrival at the course patrons found that a number of sentry boxes had been placed at the formerly unguarded entrance gates, and the cause of this display was soon made manifest by the demand, "Pay Here." The sum to be paid by pedestrians was one shilling, and this, it is stated, appeared in all cases to be done without demur. The charge for traps was higher, and many who drove out from town "preferred leaving their horses and vehicles in the custody of Mr Carew, in a paddock outside the course." The Banning of the Bookmaker. Before the advent 'of the totalisator the medium of betting was, of course, the bookmaker, and the ring enclosure was generally occupied from an early hour with gentlemen whose pencils were ever busy in the intervals between races, and who intimated to all and sundry in vigorous tones their willingness to lay against anything or everything on the card. Sweepstakes were a highly popular means for a little gamble, and "no opportunity for improvising one was allowed to escape." Calcutta sweeps were at that time a favourite form of investment for surplus cash, and the prizes in these were sometimes very handsome through spirited buying at auction. The sweeps were generally drawn on the evening before the first day's racing. The totalisator in its early days did not do altogether a "roaring" business, but it gradually grew in favour, until at a Cup Meeting in the middle 'eighties £BOOO was the total passed through the machine. There were inside and outside totalisators. For some years the bookmakers and the totalisator worked side by side, but the clay came when the Canterbury Jockey Club frowned upon the operations of the bookmaker on the course itself, and it is noted that in 1886, when several layers of odds who were plying their calling in the vicinity of the machine, declined to desist when approached by.the stewards, two of them were given in charge, but were subsequently released on their own recognisances. Proceedings in the Courts later regarding the Racecourse Reserve are matters of history.

Musical Items. "Selections by the Band" were not a feature of the early times at Eiccartoii race 3, but subsequently there is mention on occasion of programmes provided by musicians from visiting warships, and then for a few years Mr Button's Band made melody. That the music did not always please can be gathered from the following. n.^'l 8 Add 'n?ton Workshops Band was on the lawn on the secohd day of the Meeting, irom the funereal character of the music discoursed by them, they evidentW must have lost a lot of money on the New Zealand Gup, as they inflicted great torture on the hearers during the whole day. Surely, in their repertoire, they have some mora sprightly music than they gave us to-day. If they have, it will be for the benefit of future visitors to the races if they will leave the music they played to-day at home.