AUSTRALIA TO-DAY NEWS AND NOTES TRAINING FOR IMPERIAL SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 101, 30 April 1915, Page 3

AUSTRALIA TO-DAY NEWS AND NOTES TRAINING FOR IMPERIAL SERVICE

(FROH OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, 23rd April. All the Governors and the GovernorGeneral are associating themselves in a way that gives great encouragement with things pertaining to the enrolment of Australians for Imperial service abroad, and with all that goes on in the training camps of the Expeditionary Forces. Sir Henry Gahvay, the new Governor of South Australia, who holds the rank of lientenant-colonel and has seen much active service, has sought to resign his poet of Governor, in order to rejoin his regiment at the front, but has been informed that such an arrangement cannot well be made. Sir Henry is, however, finding some other avennes for his patriotic 2eal. He has made a personal appeal to 100 wealthy citizens of South Australia, who by reason of age or official duties cannot volunteer for the front. This appeal has'been so effective that within ten days he has been able to cable to Lord Kitchener the cost of seven motor ambulances, and His Excellency hopes to bring the number of ambulances up to ' a dozen very shortly. If people choose to believe that a cheerful and generous response to 6Uch an appeal will help to make them welcome as social gueete at Government House, and give principally because of this belief, no harm is done to anybody and our brave soldiers at the front are helped very considerably. Rifle shooting in Queensland i© being helped along with admirable zeal by the new Governor of that State, Sir Henry Goold- Adams, and also by his wife. Both know well how to use a rifle, and are not afraid to match their skill in marksmanship against practically all-comers. Their Excellencies are more than likely to be found at the opening of any new rifle range within comparatively easy reach of Brisbane. The other day they attended tho opening of a miniature rang© at South ' Brisbane. The Mayor of South Brisbane and his wife had the temerity to engage in a .challenge match with the Vice-Regal pair, but w*re hopelessly beaten. The Governor scored 65 out of a possible 70 and Lady Goold-Adams made 63. In face of such performances we may perhaps see a match for Governors and their wives included in the programme at the annual shoot of the National \Rifle Association. ORDERS AND HATS. Of course, you, as well as we, get humorous incidents reconnted in letters from soldiers on active service, but the following may be sent on to you from here as a possible illustration of the resourcefulness of the Australian soldier when it comes to helping himself to something which he desires. This aptitude is said to have been freely displayed during tho Boer war. A wellknown Melbourne resident in the ranks in Egypt as private writes that a certain Colonel (it would hardly be fair to give his name) was much displeased at the repeated appearance of some of his men on parade without the regulation hats. So he told them, semi-humorously, "Get the hats. Get them somehow. Beg, borrow, or steal them, but get them." Next morning the colonel, the major, and several other .officers to appear on parade without hats, but all the men had hats. The colonel's < advice, had been taken only too literally. The whole battalion was lined up and carefully examined as to its head gear, bnt none of the missing officers' hate could be positively identified amongst them, although there was suspicion, lota of it. CUTTING THE PAINTER.. While the people of the northern part of New South Wales profess splendid zeal for the maintenance of the solidarity'of the Empire they are agitating for the division of the State. They want a State of their own, because, they say, they find that they cannot get a "fair deal" from the Government and Parliament located at Sydney. This separation movement has its headquarters in the northern town of Grafton. In connection with it there has been adopted a manifesto which takes almost two hours to read. Members of the denounced Government, which is quartered in Sydney, don't display much perturbation over the movement, and even a perusal of the manifesto leaves them unmoved. They say that all the bother has started over the reduction of the ferry services provided by the Government at Grafton. According to the stiffnecked Ministers of the metropolis, the people of Grafton are preaching separation because the Government thought it was doing a fair thing by leaving Grafton with only one ferry service, which meets all local requirements, and removing a ferry, steamer that was really not needed, and seemed to be mostly utilised as a vehicle for carrying picnic parties about at the expense of the Government. An offer was made to let the Grafton Council have the ferry steamer for' the further use and pleasnre of the people of that place on condition that the Council bore the cost of maintenance and working of the little steamer, but the council scornfully rejected the proposal. This is what Ministers say, but assuredly there is more behind a. manifesto nearly two hours long. TOO FAR. Hotelkeepers haye reason for alarm in the daily accumulating strength of the movement for the following of the King's example in the matter of abstinence from strong drink during the course of the war. In compliance with a petition bearing many names of prominent persons, the Lord Mayor of Sydney is about to convene a public meeting at the Town Hall for the setting up of the movement on a big, well-advertised scale. There is evidence that a quite considerable number of people, who mostly proclaim it freely, are following the King s example. It ia admitted by hotelkeepers that their takings are on the downward grade. They ask each other, "Where is this running-down going to stop ? " The question seems relevant in view of apparent evidence that the sudden accession of hostility to hotels is extending to machinery. Twice during the past week hotels in Melbourne have suffered damage from motor-cars. In one case a big motor-omnibus behaved in an unusually ' refractory way when near to a publichouse in one of the main streets. It finished up by casting off a wheel weighing about scwt. The wheel, keeping beautifully upright, ran with increasing velocity straight towards the bar door. A police constable made a valiant attempt to 'arrest the wheel, but had no chance. With the full weight oK its whirling scwt the wheel broke through the swing door of the bar and made straight for the bar counter. A customer seated in contemplation of the tint of a glass of whisky was knocked off his chair towards the counter, over which he scrambled for his life. The barmaid shrieked and' side-stepped instinctively just in time to escape from a shower of bottles and glasses knocked by the wheel from a shelf. Not being able to got past the shelf the -wheel turned its attention to a small table, which it smashed^ Then it lay down, its reform zeal satisfied. GILDED MUTTON. Some di«treMed householders «ay that

prices that know no end, the time is near at hand when meat will cost its weight in gold. Perhaps vanity on the part of the sheep, in consequence of 'their growth in value, hae given them foolish notions. At any rate a sheep slaughtered during the week at Swan Hill, in Victoria, was found to have its teeth covered with a thin coating of gold. Enquiries were at once made as to where this sheep had come from, with the view of locating the place where gold was so abundant on .the surface that sheep could gild their teeth with it. However, the owners of the station where the cheep grazed say no gold ha-s ever been found i» their district. But they are not believed entirely. Some consider that it is a case of station-own- '■ ere who don't want to see their run converted into shafts and mullock heaps. ! and men are prospecting feverishly in j the hope of putting into their pockets J some of the gold with which the sheep j coated ite dental outfit. IMPORTED FODDER. Another proof of the 'extent to which Australia ha-s suffered through, drought, A drought the seriousness of whicJt has been overshadowed in the popular mind by the war, is to be found in the fact that the State of Victoria is importing close ■upon 23,000 tons of fodder. Most of this isjbeing brought all the way from San Francisco. About one-third is lucerne hay and the remainder * oaten and wheaten hay. The cost of the imported fodder, landed, will be from £7 10s to £9 a ton, and the Government will sell it to necessitous farmers at bare cost, but as all who want some of this fodder cannot be supplied preference will i be given in order of application. This indicates a pretty bad state of affairs for people engaged in important primary industries. In New South Wales matters are about as bad. The Government is acquiring what it can of local supplies for farmers who are worst off in the matter of fodder for their stock, but not nearly enough is obtainable here, and there seems nothing for it, but to follow at once the example of Victoria and im-' port from abroad.