AUSTRALIAN NEWS. COMMONWEALTH.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 129, 1 June 1907, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS. COMMONWEALTH.

The new sixpenny postal note will not be rejtlv for public issue for some weeks. The charge for each note will be a half- j penny. The Postmaster-General contemplates I a supply of telephones at Is a week. He has in view the provision, in places like Sydney and Melbourne, of a lower annual fixed chargo to cover four calls a daj . A penny -in-the-tlot telephone i meter for houses is also probable. i On and after Ist July neither inter- 1 state duty ceitincatcs nor entries will be lcquired for goods transmitted from one State to another by plrccls or packet post. A postal declaration will be requiied from the sender, which will furnish details necessary for Customs purpos.es. Figures prepared by tho Customs Department show that the sugar-cano harvested in No. 1 district, Queen&land, which embraces Cairns, was last season 473,160 tons, as against 457,801 tons in tho previous season. This is a decrease of 15,359 tons. In the district which includes Mackay the -1905 season produced ,598,085 tons of cane, and last season 462,018 tons, an incieuse of 63,933 tons. Another return is to be compiled to trace how much of the increase in one district and how much of the decrease in another has been atlected by the deporution of kanakas and the greater employment of white labour. Under the Commerce Act a leather exporter has to give a description, stating the percent.- go contained, if any, of su^ar and glucos.o on shipments arriving in England. After the Act came j into operation a duty was charged on these substances. Representations were made nbout it, and a letter has been received by the Customs Department from the Imperial Cus-tom.s Commissioners, to the effect that the duty will not be demanded in future, unless f>uch extensive use is made of them as to justify assessment. Members of the Federal Parliament (says the Melbourne) Herald) are being overwhelmed with information on the subject of the Northern Territory, which, if the lespective Parliaments concur, is to be transferred by South Australia to the Commonwealth. The latest budget is so bulky thnt it has been considered advisable, to ask members who desire it to take delivery at the Federal Parliament Hou«o. Tho whole of it comes ftom the South Australian Government, which is, apparently determined that no effort on its nart shall be neglected to inform the minda of members regarding the possibilities and the resources of tho practically uninhabited north. There are ronorts on the suitableness of the soil and climate for cotton-growing, the tin discoveries of the Bynoe Harbour district, the country recently examined by the Government Geologist in tho Davenport and Mm-chlson Ranges, and the gold discoveries near Winnecke's Depot and mines on the Arltunga goldfield, in the Mat'Denald Ranges. The palaeontology of South Australia and Northern Territory boring op'T-tions aie the subject of another official publication. Thero is also included a journal of explorations m Cential Australia by the Central Australian Exploration Syndicate, Ltd., under the leadership of Mr. A. A. Davidson, from 1898 to 1900. ■ A number of membcis are now- seeing tho Territory for themselves, and the official information available should help to make them perfect authorities on the affairs of the north. ' The industry of collecting funds in Australia: for unknown Eastern churches scorns to have received a check. Two I Chaldean missionaries by the Airlie, | who lately sought permission to land at Port Darwin and wero taken on to Brisbane, had como on a similar errand to that of the redoubtable Goliath i Joseph. They havo not yet landed The department holds that if tho. mission is a genuine ono there should be no difficulty in obtaining bondsmen ' among their countrymen for duo departuro again. Up to the present j sureties have not been forthcoming.