AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15003, 27 May 1912, Page 4

AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

SOME APPREHENSIONS. TOO MUCH IMPORTING, AND TOO LITrLE WATER. [FROM otto OWN cobresfoxoest.] Sydney, May 18. Words of serious warning from men whose business it is to study economics and the financial balances of a country are penetrating a happy-go-lucky assumption that there must be a continuation of tho high prosperity which Australia has enjoyed for some years past without an interruption. Your cable messages have already given you figures showing how tho imports into Australia are increasing at. a much faster rato than are the exports. Men prominent in financial circles use these figures in advice of caution regarding the operations of the present and the immediate future. Manufacturers are talking of a need for a substantial stiffening of the Customs tariff as a means from their point of view of balancing the ledger. On the other hand, advocates of free trade principles are equally positive that tho volume of imports indicates the well-being of our producing industries, because those imports represent tho equivalent in value of the increasingly large shipments of Australian products to other countries.. But, as & common proverb nets out, actions are more eloquent than words, and there is especial significance in what tho big banks are doing. Quietly but steadily they are reducing their advances and piling up as much as they can the deposits made with them. During the past three weeks there has been a decided' widening of the lenders' margin for loans. All round money is becoming dearer, and this has just been recognised by the New South Wales Government. It is now offering 4 per cent, interest on funded stock, which formerly carried only 3jj per cent. Mortgagors, especially those engaged in speculations in real estate, are being made anxious. 11 is reported that one big Sydney concern has this week been given notice to promptly liquidate an overdraft that runs into live figures. The drought does not account for this tightening of the money market and the shrinkage in credit. Among men who may be considered to have special information it is stated in terms of assurance that one purpose of the banks, but one which they will not avow for reasons of policy, is to lay hold of all the coin they can get, and that this is part of a scheme of manoeuvres to embarrass the Commonwealth Labour Government in connection with its State bank project. There has been undisguised rejoicing over the fact that the exhuberent Minister for Home Affairs (Mr. King O'Malley), the parent of the State Bank scheme, has altogether failed in his attempts to obtain any recognised banker to accept the directorship of the Commonwealth Hank. One argument advanced against the assertion that tho banks are plotting for. the break-up of the Commonwealth project is that they would not be likely to risk the serious weakening of public confidence in banks which the collapse of the Commonwealth scheme would entail. Another is that the bankers are too shrewd . to invite reprisals at the hands of the Labour party. The not reasonable assumption forced upon the everyday observer is that matters financial are not quite so well with us as some politicians and most newspapers say they are.

Drought. New Zealandcrs, especially agriculturists, are reminded by present happenings that Australia is subject to visitations of drought which must be taken into serious consideration side by side with alluring descriptions of possibilities of gathering wealth by pastoral and agricultural efforts here. From almost every State come very doleful stories of disastrous losses in live stock. Some say that tho drought is as bad as that of 1902. Dairy cows, which a few weeks back were worth up to £9 per head, are being sold for 9s each, the purchaser reckoning that he is buying only the skins. Sheep luive been sold at a shilling a head. Men from out-back say that nothing can be so distressing as the sound of moaniug of thousands of dying cattle. Thousands of sheep are staggering to the boundaries of paddocks in a last vain effort to reach some pasture with the cruel cawing of crows overhead. Ontof a total of 55,000 sheep on one station near Junee, New South Wales, 35,000 have already died of starvation and others are dying daily. Rabbits arc also dying in thousands, having helped to kill themselves as well as the glieep. In many places a supply of water for domestic use has run out, and Government tanks are being drained to give people just enough for their own consumption. Special services of prayer for rain are being held. There has even come to band an account of a suicide of a pastoralist who saw himself ruined. All this, notwithstanding that the newspapers seem to be in agreement over treating the matter with as little gravity as possible. It is feared that plain descriptions of what is actually happening now may give a severe check'to the tide of immigration, which has with much effort and expense been induced to flow towards Australia. As a last resource an official of the Lands Department in Sydney, who has practised as an amateur with the divining rod, has gone to one of the worst of tho drought-stricken centres to jsee what he can do. It seems a pity that the Rev. Mr.'Mason, the divining rod expert of Now Zealand, has not been secured lor this work.

Gubernatorial Museum. Although Sydney is the centre of disturbance people in all the other States are contributing to a fiiio show of anger regarding the intentions of the Labour Government of New South Wales in the matter of a residence for the Governor-General of Australia in this city. The end of next month will see the expiry of an arrangement under which the Governorhas had the use of Svdney Government House. The New South Wales Ministers say they will not extend the period of letting to the Commonwealth Government, and that it is the business of the Federal authorities to find lodging for the titled gentleman who is the King's representative in a Commonwealth capacity. Indignation meetings are being held, and many angry words are being used. There may be in it a good deal of the professed sentiment of pure loyalty and regard for the Sovereign and his representative, but it must be admitted that some of the indignation is due to inter-city jealousy, a kind of feeling heard of in New Zealand too. It is feared that Melbourne may score at the expense of Sydney in prestige and business-producing "advertisement if Sydney makes a serious fuss over a house lor the Governor-General, and Melbourne readily gives the best it has. One of the propositions considered gravely by the Labour Ministry here is that when the Governor-General has been turned out the place shall be open to the general public as a kind of museum. A republican tendency at least may be suspected in the minds which in a matter of course kind of way associate Governors with museums of historical antiquities.

A Chance for Merit. It is probable that before very long our Australian bluejacket will be given an opportunity of gaining promotion by merit from the forecastle to the quarter-deck. A scheme for rendering possible this promotion to the rank of commissioned officers has been brought under the notice of the Naval Board by the Minister for Defence (Senator Pearce),.and the answer of the Board is favourable. The Board is now considering the matter in connection with the boys on the recently-commissioned training-ship Tin-

for merit point out that like provisions may be made in connection with the English navy. It is known that Prince Louis of Battenburg, a member of the Imperial Staff Office, is in favour of a seaman being given an opportunity to rise to the dignity of a commission.

Discord in Unionism. What has just happened in New Zealand in connection with the Waihi mine, is similar to a number of recent displays of serious want of unity between different sections of industrial unionists in Australia. Over the recent troubles at the Lithgow Colliery and Ironworks there were some dissensions that made union leaders rather apprehensive as to what things might come to. Now, a proposal has been made by a number of union? that there shall be an all-round strike in New South Wales for 24 hours if the Government refuses to-order the release of men who are imprisoned in connection with the Lithgow troubles for breaches of the industrial arbitration laws. While the advocates of such a strike assert they are very numerous, and are very strongly supported, officials of several of the strongest industrial organisations say that this strike project is all humbug and braggadocio. They declare that a lot of red-naggers and socialist fanatics are at the bottom of the business, and that no self-respecting Government could be expected to submit to dictation' from such quarters. Whatever tho outcome may be there is likely to be a lot of noise and soma hard talking over the thing. At Adelaide a Labour member of the Assembly has found occasion to step down from the platform at a meeting which he was addressing and severely punch another prominent Labourite who had interjected "Liar."