AUSTRALIAN TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 22783, 4 May 1931, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN TOPICS

THE A.F.A. LEAGUE [From Our Correspondent.] SYDNEY, April 18. To the plain and somewhat cynical Australian citizen, Governmental dabbling in economy recalls the answer the irate father got when he told h?s wastrel son to cut out some of his wasteful “wine, woman, and song business.” “ Right oh,” was the nonchalant reply of the young scapegrace, “ I’ll cut out the song,” And because neither Federal nor State Governments as a group will seriously tackle the urgent task of balancing Budgets, the Commonwealth to-day is astir with popular reform movements. The most vital and effective of these public protests against the bickering political wreckers is the All For Australia League, with Mr A. J. Gibson as president. Every second person passed in city streets or in the great rural spaces now wears an “ A.F.A.” badge in his button-hole. When the A.F.A. was recently ■ started, it dogmatically stated that "it would not affiliate with any political party. It is not opposed to Labour, as such, or to Nationalism, But the machine tactics of both those parties are anathema to its stalwarts. It is determined to make Parliament once again a deliberative body of representatives —not a collection of vote-record-ing automatons controlled by secret juntas. To end party politics is a problem as tough as that recently tackled by the new religious denomination that was so annoyed at sectarianism that it added another sect to the existing list! But the A.F.A. feels it has sufficient popular support to put ,into practice its ideal of a deliberative Parliament with, if necessary, an elective Ministry.

RURAL RELIEF. The A.F.A. has made Mr Lyons its political leader for the coming Federal election tussle. And this Lyons movement is further strengthened by the dramatic way the Federal, Nationalist Leader, Mr Latham, has sunk his own official position in order to make a united Opposition. With the Lyons movement is also mustered the rural Rivorina movement, and the similar movement in Northern New, South Wales; and though the Federal Country Party will not organically unite with the Lyons movement, it promises to co-operate with it via ousting the Sculiin muddlers and in putting Australia again on an even financial keel. One sign of the present Government’s inability to save Australia is the registration of a semi-private Rural Reliefs Ltd. Farmers are iu desperate plight. Owing banks, . storekeepers, and machinery firms millions of pounds, they cannot even prepare for next season’s harvest. Federal and State Governments have made many promises of help—promises that fade with the constant shifting of clique fortunes. So Rural Reliefs Ltd., realising that Australia’s prosperity depends upon its crops and wool, is making this timely effort to keep the farmers on the land, it follows the general linos of the similar organisation in Canada, which was launched there by the president of the C.P.R., following tho Canadian Government’s inability

to assist the farmers. Rural Reliefs Ltd. starts with the small actual capital of £IO,OOO but it will control sufficient credit to help -the Australian primary producer over some of his present difficulties. THE BACKSHEESH' BOOM. Australia is greatly concerned at its increase of street beggars. And what the plain citizens want to know is whether these pathetic pleaders for backsheesh are sincere, or are their “hard luck stories” so much fictional fare for a gullible public ? With part of his weekly wages .mulcted for an unemployment tax, the worker is naturally critical of. the succession of beggars who thrust tin collecting 1 cups under his passing nose. Nor are his suspicions lulled by the revelation that one well-known Melbpurne beggar made £lO a week with his pathetic . poses, and that he‘Also owned shares and property to the value of £4,000. Nor; according to officials of the various charily organisations, is that a rare case of cadger’s deceit. The dole system is also shot through with fraud. In the State of New South Wales alone £3,500,000 is spent annually on , the dole, and one State Minister estimates that 25 per cent, of that vast sumis paid out to applicants who have no" right to receive any such help. The Federal Auditor-General goes even further m condemnation of such wholesale deceits. Pensions and social benefits cost the Commonwealth £20,000,000 per annum—about one-third of the Consolidated , revenue. Sixty per cent. -of women over sixty years of age and of men over sixty-five years of age receive old-age pensions. And, grimly concludes the Auditor-General, at least £1,000,000 per annum is paid out on “ fraudulent misrepresentation.” The Queensland State Government the other day made an attempt to check the corruption of 'the back-' sheesh boom. It declared that men must do some work for the dole, instead of getting that help for the asking. Result: Immediately following that sensible edict 1,000 habitues / of Brisbane’s ration queue absented themselves !

, BANKING BOTHER. ' Tlio banks throughout Australia have lately been getting quite a rap on the wrist by the Labour politicians. Besides its several ordinary trading banks, Australia has Commonwealth Government Banks and some State Government banks. The Federal Treasurer s Inflation Bill (shelved by the Senate) has rightly annoyed the Commonwealth Government Bank; which is 'a trading, a central, and a savings bank. But in New South Wales the repudiation schemes of Labour Premier Lang have caused a run on the Government Savings Bank of that State. _ One dramatic result of this shaken confidence is .a desperate attempt by the injured institution to merge with the Commonwealth Government Bank, This banking bother is particularly significant because the Labour Government s catch-cry for the coming Federal election is to bo “ The people v. the banks,” which, in plain English means, “ The muddling politicians v. the people’s banks.’’' FINGER-PRINTERY. A Sydney milkman has just successfully appealed against a street betting conviction on the grounds that the prosecuting police refused to take his finger prints in order to establish his innocence. Nor is he the first person in a tight corner to bless that mysterious system of identification. ’ . When finger-printery was still in its infancy a wanted murderer was known to be fat, of about a certain weight, and as having a peculiar mark on his cheek near the left ear. No fewer than five men were promptly arrested, each within a few pounds of the specified weight, and with the peculiar mark in the looked-for place. ' . j . Four of the five, unable satisfactorily to account for their movements at the time of the crime, spent an anxious interval until further investigation at the murder site revealed a bloody thumb print. This mark tallied exactly with the thumb print of the fifth arrested man, who was afterwards convicted on other evidence. When, thirty-eight years ago, Mark Twain made finger-print identification the dramatic hinge on which the plot of his ‘ Pudden-head Wilson ’ _ story turned, most readers thought it i was just another fictional dodge to brighten up his yarn. Even to-day some seem to suspect finger-printery as a superstition akin to thought reading or palmistry. But it is worth notmg that the expert criminal is not amongst the sceptics. Ho knows too much for ''that. And before each illicit sortie he takes the precaution of muffling his finger tips

in rubber gloves, or at least a coating of collodion. There are three scientific facts on which finger-printery is based. The human finger leaves a mark on every solid object it touches. That faint and almost invisible impression is a film of sweat grease patterned by the pores and ridges of skin concerned. Treated with powder, it can generally, be clearly seen, photographed, and enlarged. The second fact is that no two fingers make exactly the same print pattern. The third fact is that each person’s fingerprints keep their distinctive patterns unchanged throughout life. The patterns may grovy slightly in scale during the growing years of youth, but their peculiar markings remain from infancy to old age, and even after death until mortification sets in. .

So, as Mark Twain truly said in his witty yarn of long ago, every man carries with him from cradle to grave a physiological autograph that cannot be counterfeited or disguised. That was one reason why our soldiers had their finger prints taken when enlisting fertile World War. A soldier might—and often did—lose or swap his identification disc. But so long as one of his fingers Remained some check could be kept on his. identity; ■ In India and North America illiterate Natives are still sorted Out with the aid of finger-printery. And some banks urge big depositors- to impress their thumb marks over the usual cheque signatures as an additional safeguard against fraudulent impersonation. As fascinating as the science of fin-ger-printery _ is the cataloguing system of finger-print records by the police, formula so that the sergeant in charge The whole thing is reduced to a simple formula go that the sergeant in charge of the prints can almost immediately put his hand upon the wanted card, though as many as 50,000 such cards be in his care. ~

Criminals dread finger-printery. Innocent people should ’ welcome it.