AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 10, 15 May 1880, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

[Reutee's Special to Stab.]

Melbourne, Friday.

Parliament was opened on Tuesday by Royal Commission. Sir Chas. McMahon was elected Speaker by 44 to 39 votes. The new members were sworn in.

Parliament was opened by the Governor, who stated that the defences of the colony are being proceeded with. The International Exhibition, to be opened in October, is estimated to cost £320,000, and the receipts are expected to bring in £70,000.

In the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Service, the Premier, stated that the influx of Chinese was not desirable. The question was not merely a colonial, but also a national one. He will make a statement on the subject at a later date. Advices from Mauritius state that the sugar market is unchanged and inactive. There is a great scarcity of coal in Mel"bourne, amounting to almost a famine, owing to the strike of the Newcastle miners.

John Oxford, who is believed to be the same individual who formerly shot at the Queen, and was confined as a lunatic, has been convicted of larceny and charged as a vagrant. T. W. Wills, formerly well known as a Victorian cricketer, has committed suicide whilst of. unsound mind, caused through excessive drinking. Obituary. — F. Strode, a very old Victorian colonist, formerly proprietor of the Port Philip Gazette, aged 08. Moses Reutor, chief Rabbi of the Hebrews in Melbourne. Six sailors on board the barque Twee Vrieinbrer, from Java, have died of serous fever, which is ragiug in the ship. The steamship Orieut has arrived at Adelaide from Plymouth. Sydney, Friday. The accounts of the steamer Strathleven, which conveyed the first shipment of frozen meat to England, show that the vessel lost £15 by her trip. In the Legislative Council last night, the new Electoral Bill was under discussion. The clause providing that candidates for the Assembly should deposit £50, was rejected on a division. Some of the nn'ners at Newcastle are charging 145., and others 10s., per ton for coal.

A prospectus has been published to-day of a company to be formed for the purpose of working Poverty Bay shale. In the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday night, a resolution adverse to granting land for Church sites, was carried against tlie Government.

The Railway Paymaster has been bailed up near Walcha, and robbed of £80. The police ore in pursuit.