Manawatu Daily Times The Australian Floods

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6539, 22 February 1928, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times The Australian Floods

How extraordinary in their vagaries are the climatic conditions of the great Island Continent! For months at a time in some poi’tions of Australia there is no rain at all, and stock die by the thousand while the settlers suffer the greatest hardships.

Torrential downpours are peculiarly familiar to the great river districts of Australia, particularly north of Sydney on the coast of New South Wales and Queensland, where serious floods, attended by loss of life, have recently been experienced. At Grafton, a fine town on the Clarence River and the centre of a rich dairying and agricultural district, the water invaded the streets giving them the appearance of canals, and the residents had a lively time salving what they could of their belongings from their inundated homes. The damage in this one place alone and its immediate neighbourhood is estimated at three-quarters of a million pounds. Maize crops in the Clarence valley appear to have suffered heavily, the loss here being estimated at £350,000, while sugar crops have been damaged to an extent of £IO,OOO. The Mayor has applied to the Government to assist in repairing losses. The Premier of New South Wales, Mr. T. R. Bavin, has replied by issuing instructions to meet all urgent claims and to do the utmost to mitigate any suffering caused by the floods.

Conditions of a similar kind have been experienced on the Tweed, Hunter, Patterson, Williams, and Hawkesbury Rivers, and north in Queensland along the Brisbane, Albert, and Logan valleys, where the highest floods for years have been coming down. Even out in “the dry and arid West,” they have not. been free from the floods, one report stating that a man had been drowned attempting to swim the swollen Lachlan River, which in dry seasons is merely a series of waterholes.

Latest reports, however, show that the danger of more serious inundation is abating. The waters are receding in most parts and railway services are restored on all lines. The rain inland is clearing, but more is expected on the North Coast. As the rivers have still to discharge immense quantities of water from their upper reaches flood conditions in the townships of the lower reaches are still dubious. But the outlook certainly is much more hopeful.

This makes strange reading for us, who have not experienced rain for a period of months, who, perforce, see our beloved gardens perish for lack of moisture, and who moodily contemplate depleted supplies of water for domestic use owing to an outrageously insufficient storage scheme. Climatic conditions are “on the upset" here, too, and there are those among our own weather prophets who give warning of floods when the drought shall break. It may serve us well to take early precautions to guard against a surprise visitation that may find our gutters and surface ways blocked with the gathered debris of the late months of drought.

At last night ’s meeting of the High Schools' Board of Governors, Mr. W. T. Penny mentioned that some disturbance had been caused at nights by larrikins climbing over the fence into the Boys High School baths and skylarking there at all hours of the night. It was decided to put the matter in the hands of the police and to make an example of any trespassers. “Efforts to scare relief from the payment of the wages of employees while in military camps have been renewed in conjunction with tho Employers’ Federation, but the Government declined to move in the matter,” said the executive’s report to tho annual conference of tho Builders’ Federation being held at Christchurch.

A drowning accident occurred on Monday evening at Opotiki, A little orphan boy named Peter Carter, aged six years, went swimming, leaving his clothes on the bank. The body was found six hours later under a launch nearby. The annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Optometrists was opened at Auckland yesterday morning Mr. H. S. Gilbord, of Wellington, presiding over 22 delegates. He said ho hoped that before the next conference optometrists would be placed on tho same plane as doctors and chemists, tho Premier having promised that tho bill would bo dealt with early in the coming session. Tho Mayor extended to the delegates a hearty welcome.