STEAMER IN QUARANTINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14689, 25 May 1911, Page 5

STEAMER IN QUARANTINE.

Sydney, May 24. The surgeon of the steamer Prims Waldemar, on which a case of small pox occurred, is ill with fever, and tha quarantine release arrangements have been suspended.

NEW SOUTH WALES RAILWAYS,*

Sydney, May 24.

The Royal Commission on Decentralisation's report rocommends that Fort Stephens and Jervis Bay be opened up for' oversea shipping in order to make thosoj ports effective as decentralisation factors., Extensivo cross-country railways con-) netting are also recommended to link up the New South Wales and Victorian railways at Tocumwal and" Mulwalla, ini Kiverina.ft This will probably divert to Sydney the grain and wool, which now go. to Melbourne. Connection between! Broken Hill and Condobolin is another recommendation.

FEDERAL LAND TAX.

Melbourne, May 24.

The case of Osborne v. the Comniony wealth, for the purpose of testing, tha validity of the land tax, is one of th.o most important as affecting the powers off the Commonwealth Parliament yet hearcfc, The right of the Legislature to enact thai land tax is challenged on two grounds., The first is technical, relating to the dis« crepancy in the dates regarding the pass% ing of the land tax itself and the Land Tax Amendment Act. The main object tion rests on • a constitutional point. 1$ is contended by the nominal plaintiff thab the avowed legislative intention of the* Land Act, namely, to burst up large estates, is an invasion of the powers specifically reserved to the States, the Federal Constitution merely empowering the Federal Government to pass taxing; measures for revenue-raising purposes.