AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3384, 22 January 1919, Page 40

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Mr Watt (Acting Prime Minister) states that the Government will pay farmers the promised guarantee for the incoming wheat, crop next week. It will involve an expenditure of £14,000,000. The Controller of Shipping (Mr Poynton) has announced that the Federal Government ha-s cancelled, by agreement, the contract with the Wallace Power Boat Company for the construction of six wooden vessels. The Commonwealth Government s repatriation policy includes a housing scheme involving an outlay of from £25,000.000 to £50.000,000 to erect or purchase houses.* The individual *utlay is not to exceed £7OO, which is repayable over a long term of years. Extensive bush fires are devastating the Bathurst and Goulburn districts. Bush fires enveloped the township of Mongerlowe and destroyed two churches and many residences, heavy damage being also done in other directions. The estate of Mr Francis Foy is valued at £149.000. The will provides for the sale of his racing stud. A meeting of the Returned Soldiers'

Association In Perth resolved that, if 'the coat of living and rents aro not reduced, repudiation of the national debt should be advocated. The Commonwealth Statistician states that the membership of unions in the Commonwealth has risen from 433,224 in 1912 to 564,187 to 1917. The Returned Soldiers Ship and Wharf Labourers' Union is sending delegates to London to address the Australian troops on Commonwealth industrial matters. A joint sitting of both Tasmanian Houses of Parliament elected Mr E. Mulcahy to fill the vacancy in the Federal Senate caused by the resignation of Senator "Long owing' to his connection with the scandal regarding the purchase by the Australian Naval Department of the Shaw wireless plant. The New South Wales Government Statistician estimates that the drink bill last year totalled £7.218,000, being an increase of £551,000. This increased expenditure, however, is not due to an increased consumption, for it was less than that of former years, but to the increased prices of liquor. . A public meeting at Darwin, presided: over by the Mayor, decided to refuse to pay takes until the rights of citizenship are secured by the appointment of a local . Advisory Board in the Northern Territory. Fire destroyed Hondley's large chocolate . factory, on the St. Kilda road, Melbourne, with heavy stocks. The damage is estimated roughly at between £40,000 and £50,000. Victoria Barracks narowly escaped destruction. . A big body of soldiers, by frreat efforts, suirjceeded in preventing damage to the main structure, though wooden outbuildings suffered. THE INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC. Sixteen New Zealand soldiers, mostly Maoris have been quarantined from the P. and O. mail steamer Malta at Fremantle, .as they are suffering from influenza. - The Oceanic Company's mail • steamer Sonoma, which arrived at Sydney from San Francisco and way ports, has been placed in quarantine owing to a suspicious case of pneumonia. The patient is now convalescent. Dr Paton, head of the New South Wales Health Department, discredits the statement that a lighthouse-keeper contracted pneumonio influenza, notwithstanding that he had been isolated for eight months. Dr Paton declares that it has been proved that one must come into contact with a sufferer before one can contract the disease. The Federal Directors of Quarantine have prohibited the importation of dogs from Britain and New Zealand, as a protection for the dogs of Australia. TROUBLE IN NEW GUINEA. Mr Pbynton, Assistant Minister for the Navy in the Federal Ministry, has announced that in October, 1916, the conduct of a tribe at Malekula was. so threatening that the Una took a contingent of native police from Rabaul, joined the Kersaft, and landed contingents of sailors and police. i% Heavy bush fighting was encountered. The Una contingent had only one casualty, but the native police lost more thau half their number Again last September the Fantome landed an expedition at Malua Bay. The men mounted, two Maxim guns on. a cliff, behind which hostile natives were in force. After _ half an hour's fighting the sailors occupied the ridge whence the main resistance had come. There were no casualties among the landing party.