GRIP OF THE DROUGHT.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 272, 19 November 1919, Page 6

GRIP OF THE DROUGHT.

AUSTRALIA'S TROUBLES,

MILLIONS OF STOCK DIE

NEW SOUTH WALES LOSSES

£50,000,000 WORTH OF SHEEP

Does Sydney realise that one of the worst droughts in its history has NewSouth Wales in its demoniacal grip? Graziers are asking the question, says a Sydney newspaper just to hand. They point out that for more than a year now, and in many districts for 18 months, the drought has been raging with ever-increasing intensity; that millions of sheep are dead; that the stock .are' still dying over at least half of the State; that at best there is not likely to be more than 2,000,----000 lambs this year instead of 8,000,----000 or 9,000,000; that stations west of the Darling are in danger of being abandoned; that large losses in cattle have occurred; that if a man ordered tracks to-day to remove starving stock he does not know that the department can let him have them, but that it would be at least months ahead; and that all trucks available for Homebush have been booked up until the end of January.

If a man decided now to send his stock to Homebush, he could not get any trucks for them until next year— the department has already orders for 13,000 trucks, and it is allotting them at the rate of 1000 per week. Just what the drought losses in live stock amount to nobody knows, but representative men in the industry fear they' have been very heavy. More than three-fourths of the pastoral country have been droughtstricken, and in parts of it individual stockowners are known to have lost oQ to 5 75 per cent of their sheep. Moreover, in most of the north-west; pnd the west, the lambing probably does not pan out at more than 10 per cent. Large stations that in normal times would mark 20,000 lamb.? are r.ot marking 2000 this year, while some are marking none at all. LAMBINGS A FAILURE.

It is in the north-west and the west that as a rule the large lamb ings are, and it is the stations out there that supply the largest part of our "natural increase" in sheep. But tin's year the lambing there must be written as "failure."

Well-informed men in the industry estimate that at the end of 1919, there will be at least. 25 per cent fewer sheep in New South Wales than at the end of 1918, when there were 37,. 000,000. That is, assumin^the drought Ineaks now all over the State—it must be remembered that the losses are still going on, and will continue until the rain comes.

If.it does / not come before Christmas, graziers fear that the losses will iho most disastrous, running probably ;to 33 1-3 per cent, and more of the i total number of sheep in the State, po that the figures would be back to j the low-water mark of the end of the 1902 drought, about 24,000,000. TEN MILLION HEAD. ' Assuming, as they do, that the sheeo and lamb losses will amount to 10,000,000 when they are all totalled

up, graziera point out; that this represents an immediate loss of £15,000,----000. But the loss directly and indirectly amounts to much, more than that.

There is the wool clip loss, which may be taken at 10s to 12s 6d per head per annum. Then there is the loss in the meat production. As a result of the drought it is practically* certain there will be no surplus mutton for export next year, and even the folio .ving year it ..may be comparatively only small. It would take years of good seasons to build up our iioeks again. Instead of exporting the equivalent of a couple of million carcases of mutton next year, and fiaybe a million lambs, worth, say, £4,000,000., there is not likely to be any at all.

Further, there is the natural increase in sheep that would have come from the breeders among these ten million sheep if they had lived. Apart from those that have died, breeding stock are being sacrificed every week nt Homebusb because it is the only way to save them from starvation.

LOSING £300,000 A WEEK

At Homebush alone it is estimated that £100,000 is being lost weekly through the enforced sale of young jmd Jbreeding stock. Every week young ewes and cows and heifei's are bc-ing sold, "the sacrifice of which," in the words of the saleyards superintendent, "must be felt in the future." All these losses in breeding stock will put the State's production back years. Graziers say that those ten million sheep, lost in the drought, could Be capitalised at £5 per head. That is allowing for wool and meat production and natural increase over four years. It can be assumed that an average service of four years would bo got out of them. Therefore their loss means directly and indirectly a loss df £50,000,000 to the State. There is the loss, too, in labor to consider. When the drought breaks there will be work for probably not n\ore than 25 per cent of the present labor at the abattoirs, meat works, and canning factories. There is considerably less work this year for shearers, and there will be still less next year. There will be at least 25 per cent less general work on the stations, and less production for the railways to handle. This lessened detcand from the pastoi'al industry will make itself felt indirectly throughout the whole of our industrial life, and the loss to the general revenue must bo heavy. And nil just because of a drought about which, the average city person hears little and understands itss.

MINIMUM WAGE' QUESTION

It is particularly because of the disastrous drought that the Producers' Associations are asking for a postponement of the application of a minimum wage to the rural industries. They point out that as mosb of the employees are "found" by the employers, the increased cost of living; affects their etnploj'ees practically only in clothes—and even clothes are a much less expansive item in the rural industries than in the city.

Graziers say that the application of anything like ££3 17s to the rural industries would m^an doubling the ruling cash wages of a large proportion of their hands. "If anything approaching this were done,"' a representative grazier said, "we- should have to dismiss many of cur men, stop nearly all improvement work, and keep things going as best we could with fewer hands and increasing vegetable and animal pests. It certainly would decrease production. Anyway let us t^et over this awful drought first, and we can talk about the minimum wage in the country after."