AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 28, 2 February 1907, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

COMMONWEALTH. No action is contemplated at present by tho Defence Department with reference- to the trouble that has arisen in the Scottish Regiment in Adelaide. The department was to an extent involved in the action at law, in which Mr. McEwan was awarded £350, L as it undertook to pay tho cost of Capt. Smeaton's defence. That, however, it is contended, implies no obligation to satisfy the judgment of the Court. Tt is probable that at an early date the question of issuing Commonwealth postage stamps of uniform design will be referred to a body of experts for cci sideration of the details. In ! all probability there will be no uniform issue until arrangements- havo been made ,for printing them in one central office, otherwise there wou. je much unnecessary outlay for dies. Australia is the only» place in the British dominions which retains the head of the lato Queen on the stamps. Ine supply of paper with the water-marks ot the different States recently became exhausted, and in future all Australian stamps will be water-marked with an "A" and a crown. Professor David, of the Sydney University, writes : — One conclusion more than any other has been forced upon me after my travels through India, Europe, America, and Mexico, and that is this, that while some countries are undoubtedly ahead of us in education, and some in seriousness and strenuousness of national life, and some may have on the whole greater natural advantages than we possess as' regards situation, lainfall etc., yet there is no country that I hava seen where conditions of life are on the whole more favourable than they aro in Australia, and no blessings enjoyed by tho people of any nation greater than those in which we, as mpmbers of the British Empire, here participate. Dr. Danysz holds that the fact that his virsus in innocuous to man is fully established. Had it been otherwise, he says, no resident on Broughton Island could havo escaped infection. He anticipates that his time win be fully, occupied till October in working out th" tests. He has, he says, to battle against ctiiicrent climatic conditions in, Australia and then there is the variation in the Australian rabbit constitution to be considered. These questions make it necessary to continue feeling the way carefully that no mistake may be mad© when th« moment of^ action arrives. Ho hopes \to reduce the" question of rabbit extermination in Australia to an exact science, and in order to achieve thnt end a step only at a time is essential. Australians haze been puzzled at alterations in the standard time, ono, which took effect under the "Zone Time Act/ making adifference of half en hour. Tho Adelaide Observer explains : Steps towards an interstate agreement relative to standard timo were taken at 1 a Postal Conference in New Zealand, when Mr. Charles Todd (the then Post-master-General of South Australia) sub- | mitted a resolution affirming the dej sireableness of legislating in the Australian States in tavour of standard timo. This was adopted, and Acts of Parliament upon the lines suggested were passed by the several State Legislatures. Under tho zone time tho earth is divided into 24 zones of 15 deg., or one : hovr, each Each zone differs in t time from the other by exactly one hour, and i any one zone tune will differ from any other by on© or more full hours. Tao [ South Australian Act declared that tha mean time of the 135 th meridian of longitude east of Greenwich should be the standard time taroughout this Stale. -'»>. midnight on 31st January, 1895, the Clock Was put back 14 minutes 2O 2-5 seconds. . That made Adelaide nine hours cast of Greenwich. ' The zone timo for ths eastern- States was fixed at tho 150 th meridian, or 10 hours east of Greenwich, and Perth. at the 120 th meridian, or eight hours east of Greenwich, and Perth at tho 120 th meridian, ar eight hours east of Greenwich. The one hour difference between Adelaide and tho eastern States led to great inconvenience from business and other points of view, and by Act of Parliament the clock at midnight on 30lh April, 1899, was put forward half an hour. The clock time in' South Australia is now half an hour behind that in Victoria. New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania, and li hours before Western Australian time.