DROUGHT IN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12168, 14 January 1903, Page 6

DROUGHT IN AUSTRALIA.

A TALK WITH MR. B. TEECE. Mb. Richabd Teece, general manager of the Australian Mutual. Provident Society, -who arrived in Auckland per the s.s. Mokoia, from Sydney, on Sunday evening last, in the course of a brief interview with a representative of the Herald, dealt interestingly with the present condition of the land from which he had just come.

Mr. Teece explained at the outset that affairs in Australia still bear a serious aspect. The trail of the drought is markedly over everything. Contrary to the accepted idea over here, he declares that the drought cannot really be spoken of as having " broken up," notwithstanding th'i fact that copious downpours of rain were recently registered over the greater part of the country. In years gone by these rains at the end of a long dry spell would have meant a return to times of something akin to plenty, as they would have served to revivify the parched-up cotton-bush, salt-bush, and other stock-sustaining shrubs and herbs peculiar to Australia. But the present drought has been of such duration that the starving stock has eaten down these growths to such an extremein many cases completely uprooting them—as to kill them off entirely, the consequence being that the recent rains have been followed by the up-springing of practically nothing but useless weed. Of course, Mr. Teece explains, they have filled the dams and set rivers running that have exhibited dry beds for years past; but to this narrow scope is their benefit limited. The hope of drought-stricken Australia, he says, now lies in a copious general rainfall in February. Such a downpour would ensure a supply of winter grass, without which the outlook for the stock-raiser will become dismal indeed. It is because of this that it is not safe to say the great drought has broken up" until it is seen what neSt month brings forth.

- Should tins hope indicated by Mr. Teece fail of realisation the effect on Australia may be disastrous in the extreme. Already the consequences attendant upon the drought have been terrible enough. Thousands of .cattle and millions, of sheep have perished in one or two instances whole towns in the .back blocks have been reduced to the verge of bankruptcy, and numbers of men who have stack bravely to their land holdings through bad season after bad season, have been forced to finally throw up the sponge." Prior 10 the recent rains there were many cases to be cited in which the men on the land were faced with the heart-breaking alternative of having to pack up and move to watered places, or to literally perish. Mr Teece illustrates the unrelenting dryness of the seasons by declaring that there is a large number of children, four, five, and six years of age, in Australia to-dav, who never sawram m their lives before the fall this summer !

Ine bad business and distress of the country districts has, naturally, been reflected in the cities, and there are but few of the commercial concerns in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, that are not feeling the effects of it. In these large centres, too, a very tangible evidence of the trouble is to be observed in the great number of men, who, driven from the land, by a prospect little short of starvation, have Hocked citywards in the hope of securing work, but who simply serve to swell the

ranks of the metropolitan unemployed, and render more acute a difficulty that befcr* was bad enough in all conscience. In sere- ' ral of the cities the Government have either started, or have in contemplation, the stars- - ing of relief works, and in Sydney, -at tha ' present time, the Minister for Works is patting into operation a scheme by which men can earn 7s a day shifting sand. But in not a few instances the Governments themselves are responsible for a number of ' • : unemployed in consequence of the retrenchments it" has been found necessary to effect, especially in the, Railway Departments, whose balance-sheets have been sadly af- I fected bv the great shrinkage in the quantity j of produce to be carried over the lines. West Australia is, in Mr. Teece's opinion, perhaps the most favourably situated at the ! present time. It is a vast country, with j a comparatively small population, turning out, according to the latest returns, about j two and a-quarter million, ounces of gold per vear, with nothing to indicate that that output is going to decrease to any great extent for years to come. This must augur happy financial circumstances, provided the mines, businesses, and Government are run on sound lines. Then, as far as her agri- , , cultural and pastoral districts are concerned, droughts are an unknown quantity in that State, and, although he considers she will never be able to export any great quantity ! of produce, she may be depended upon inthe future to raise "an amplitude of foodstuffs for her own consumption. But notwithstanding the troublous period « through which the eastern portion is now passing, Mr. Teece has great faith in Australia. Her eastern lands are so fertile and her stock-raising capabilities so great, that it onlv means a few good seasons, and theia must "be a happy readjustment and restoration of her financial and living conditions. Though a New Zealander himself, he declares that, given a fairly good rainfall, there are far greater chances of wealth coming the way of the man on the land in Australia than here. Where the New Zea- ' lander has the advantage, however, is that season in, season out, he can with certainty count on some return for his laboursmall, maybe, sometimes, yet always enough to " keep him going," as it were. His Australian brother, on the other hand, has. side by side with the prospect of a big return, to face the possibility of the results of his labour being absolutely nil.