AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17081, 13 August 1917, Page 11

AUSTRALIA TO-DAY.

> (Fhom Our Own Corkespondttvt./ SYDNEY, August L I An amazing thing about the railway smash which occurred on the West Ausi Italian Midland line last week is the small death roll. Tho cars were piled up in gTeat ' confusion, and there were somo escapes I which may truly be described as tniracuI lous. The train was running at a high speed over water-soaked country. It was dark, and raining heavily. At a place 1 ™\ tho w ? t,nr wus almost level with the nius the engine ran on to an embankment that had been partially washed away. The 1 f and, as tney did so, one rail broke, and end roso in tho air. This coml plctely penetrated the luggage van, and tho first compartment of the following car. The engine ploughed deeply into the sand, and stopped sharply, and the passenger coaches telescoped one another. Several compartments of coach were smashed to splinters. The lights on tho train were comextinguished, the raiu was coming down m torrents, and there was terrible confusion. When lights -were procured, a little girl was found floating in the water beside tho wrecked train. She had sustained fatal injuries before being thrown out. Her mother was found, fearfully mangled, but she lintwo hours. Further along was found a jroung returned soldier na-mcd burges. His chest was crushed, and he was oaught in the wreckage. Thoy began to try to extricate him, but he said: ,? Don't mind me. I know I am hopeless. Attend to the women Grst." Ht? died an hour Liter, and just before he passed away he looked up and asked: ''How axe the women?" He had been on his way home, after & long period of active service. His body was extricated with great difficulty. Andrew Macpherson was lying sleeping in tho compartment which was penetrated by the broken rail. The car was smashed, and the rail actually passed oveT Macpherson a feet. Ho was only slightly bruised, i atnek <_) Bricn and three others were in a compartment which was smashed beyond i recognition. The three others escaped unO'Brien, who was sitting upright, had his head jammed tightly against the back of the carriage. An axe had to be used to release him. yet he was not seriously injured James Kenrick, at the first station before tho accident, left his seat to join an acquaintance in another part of tho rru m 'j • Seat was sashed to atoms. Iho driver and fireman, somehow, escaped without a scratch. . 0 engine crew of another train, similarly wrecked by a collapsing bridge on another line, wore less fortunate. The engine fell back into the hole, and trucks piled on U i i'i ,° got out, but so badly scalded that ho_ afterwards died. The fireman was shut in the cab, amidst scalding steam, and he died as he was cut out about mmutes later. The passenger coaches on this tram kept the rails, and the passengers escaped. TEA-PLANTING FOR AUSTRALIANS. . is one of the greatest tea-drink-ing countries of the world. The annual consumption is no less than 40,000,0001b which works out at something over 81b per head. Nearly all this tea comcs from Ceylon and India, and some from Java and Ulnna. .Naturally, wise men are asking if Australia cannot grow its own tea, and a rgPort to the commonwealth by Mr W. P. Federal analyst, is interesting. Mr Wilkinson says that Australian climatic conditions are wholly unsuitable for tea. 0 Plant requires a uniformly hot, damp climate. The Australian climate is uniformly hot and dry. But the large slice of New Guinea which Australia possesses is balieved to be an ideal place for the cultivation of the tea plant. The larg© upland jungles oi Papua, it is said, closely resemble thoso of the tea districts of Javaand Ceylon, and the essential conditions— average temperature and humidity-=-are present. Coloured labour, regarded as vital tor the pursuit of tea planting on a commercial basis, may be drawn wholly from local sources, or supplemented by trained labour from other British possessions in view of the magnitude of the tea consumption of Australia, says Mj Wilkinson, f .1, for economic reasons, for the Oaxmonwealth to promptly devote attention to tho prospect of siil cesshiJly establishing this most valuable inWl7' T^V OSSOn r preliminary step would te the selection of a suitable district and the ll u ,r° an experimental station. rfhJli£ §J?° dl ® CQi fey. onoe tho suitability of conditions in Papua has been IHoved, in enoouraging extensive planting if the recent developments m India, Cev™;'rU aV \4'r a Surnatl ?' ma y be taken a/5 a gtude. Thes economic advantage to the Commonwealth of utilising to the fullest extent the resouroes of its own vast tropical lun exploited within ? , sa] \ the Australian coast, 5 by Mr Wilkinon. 1 Muus^ r for , Home and Territories , has the report under consideration.

_ SECTARIAOTSI&. the serpents -which ! disturb public life—sectarianism—appears to bo conjoin more and more into evidence in Australia. Last week, there was a fourtioors discussion of election literature, alleged to be sectarian, in the Federal House; and m New South Wales, on the same issue; bitter things were said Clergymen in New South Wales freely enter the .pubho schools and ff ivo 'brief rehgious instruction and the Romaji Cathohes recently have been crying out against thia as a steadily-growing attempt to " Pro t-esfcantiso the schools. Last week a deputation -waited upon the Minister of Education and asked that Sydnty University be empowered to confer degrees of divinity, and the Minister gave a sympathetic reply, I his, naturally, stirred up the Roman Catholics.

.Tho Roman Ca.tholio Bishop (Dr Eielly) P 11 * 3 " 0 fwnotion, was very outspoken! JRiey must not Protestantise the univcr«f "iey H vo , to do with the public schools, he declared. "It mnst -be secular. . . . London and Manchester Universities were mentioned in support of the request, beat what doctrines did they preach? r< 16 , outside the Roman Catholic Church? A doctrine of corruption tho doctrine of a dead body putrefying and going to pieces. They have lost the meaning of the Bible, and have no one to tell them wbat it is. Yet they are going to give a degree in divinity! Thai's doing ™ de T? l 8 . anyway."—(Laughter.) The President of the Catholic Federation said that there ware 100,000 Roman Catholic voters in New Souili Wales, and thev possessed sufficient Irish to say that they woold not be misgoverned by anyone. "We must give the Catholic Federation in this country an element of Sinn Feinism, not with the desire of injuring any individual, hut for tho purpose of securing our just and equitable rights to fair play."—(Anplanse.) In the Federal House debate referred to each side accused tho other of sectarianism, and each charged the other with circulating some very objectionable sectarian pamphlets which were spread about during the election campaign. There was plentv of "ginger" m tho discussion, but this mostly appeared when the debaters got sidetracked, and found themselves discussm 2 the evergreen subject of "Loyalists vereus Disloyalists. ' In the Quoensl.-md Parliament a member said that a Mjnistoi-—an enthusiastic Irishman named Fihelly—had -used the sectarian weapon. The Minister said that the member was a liar. The member challenged the Minister to oon»e outside; a.nd both were on their way to give an imitation of the Billing-Archer Shee incident when his suppoiten? firmly grasped the Minister and kept liira inside the 'House.