DROUGHT IN QUEENSLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19952, 20 November 1926, Page 20

DROUGHT IN QUEENSLAND.

VIVID PEN PICTURES. HEAVY LOSSES AND SUFFERING. (From Ode Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 11. Aboard a motor truck, which has travelled from Melbourne to Darwin, and is now returning to the Victorian capital is a journalist who is representing southern newspapers. He has given sonic fine accounts of life in outback Australia, but none lias surpassed the weird picture ho paints of conditions he . found in drought-stricken Queensland. He telegraphed his message from Rockhampton, after the truck had passed through wide regions of north-western and central Queensland, which have been in the grip of a long and severe drought, only partially broken by rains a couple of months *'i'he journalist wrote: ‘’The drought is almost the only topic of conversation in Queensland. At every place visited by the truck the party has been told ot heavy losses and great suffering. _ It is said that many station owners are in that position only nominally. They are really nifinufZGrs for the financial institutions to which they are hopelessly in debt. 1 here are many gloomy predictions of what will happen when the drought breaks and the financial institutions begin to recover the money they have advanced. One large station was said to have* lost 20,000 cattle, and another station mustered only 400 out ot 12,000 sheep. One of the most pathetic sights seen by the party was all that was left of a mob of breeders that someone had attempted to move. The mothers wore dead, and the newly-born calves were left to starve to death. In the Northern Territory, dingoes, eagles, and crows were seen attacking beasts that were not yet dead. They were being torn to pieces while they stood, and the empty sockets from which the eyes had been plucked seemed to plead for an end to their agony. Whei possible a merciful bullet was despatched to end the beast’s sulfering. A station owner near Rockhampton said that for four months he had not had 1 10 moral courage to inspect 60 square miles of his land.' The monotony of the sunbaked country made it easy to appreciate why Arctic explorers took .bundles ot brightly-coloured ribbons with them to relieve the strain on their eyes. ‘■The thin green grass that was bravd.y pushing a way through the hard soil between Winton and Longreach was a welcome sight The grass was only a paten, however, and the country from Longreacn to the coast was as dry as any in the Northern Territory. Even in the imdvt of this desolation the Australian joked. At Boulia, where it was said that the.e had not been a good shower of rain tor live years, the party inquired about a strange bird that was flying overhead. Someone promptly said that the buds were really frogs that bad given up hope of ever being able to swim, and in desperation had grown wings. “The drought has brought about a boom in the motor trade, foi every station is carting feed. At Winton seven motor trucks were sold by one agent in a day A station owner said that so tar this year he had paid £4OOO to one car her for carting feed 50 miles from the railhead. The stations began artificial , feeding on the expectation of early rain, and soon they had spent so much money that they had to continue to retrieve s-omo of the loss.” ____________