AUSTRALIAN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5990, 10 February 1891, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN.

(By Electric Telegraph — Copyright.) [Per Press Association.] SYDNEY, Feb. 9. The Intercolonial Labor Conference has opened its sittings here. Victoria, New Zealand, and Tasmania are represented. A scheme is being drafted for an Australasian Federation of Labor which will be submitted to another conference at Bullarat in April. The scheme provides that each union shall retain self-govern-ment of its own particular affairs and federate in order to facilitate mutual cooperation where necessary for the common welfare. * Feb. 10. Mr Eddy, Chief Commissioner of Railways, and the Hon. R. White, M.L.C., have left on a visit to New Zealand. MELBOURNE, Feb. 9. Nine of the crew of the Orion from Glasgow have been landed suffering from '. lead poisoning. The metal is supposed to have been contained in sugar supplied to the ship. One man has since died. Feb. 10. There is considerable dissatisfaction among the Federated Seamen's and other Unions respecting the new shipping articles, and trouble is likely to arise. ADELAIDE, Fbi. 5. The Colonial Treasurer has decided to allow the balance of the loan to remain on the London market till the 14th inst. BRISBANE. Feb. 10. An extraordinary tide visited Cairns and Townsville, and the low-lying parts of the last mentioned town were flooded. The Shearers' Union is very exasperated over the importation of free shearers from Victoria and New South Wales into Queensland. At a meeting of shearers at Barcaldine, about 350 miles west of Rockhampton, it was decided to procure rabbits and turn them loose on the banks of the Barcoo and other rivers. Several owners who employed free shearers have been threatened that their stations would be burned. HOBART, Feb. 10. The Attorney-General is drafting a constitution for submission to the Federal Convention. It will probably be modelled on that of America as the Canadian constitution is considered too advanced for the present. Under the proposed constitution each colony will become a province, electing its own senators and the members of the House of Representatives, and will be presided over by a Lieut. -Governor, the Senate to consist of an equal number of members from each province, and provincial representation in the House of Representatives to be one member for every twenty thousand of inhabitants. The constitution provides a general Governor shall be appointed by the Imperial Government. The powers of the Federal Parliament will probably include the imposition of taxation, the question of customs tariff being left to the Federal Government, and also the administration of defence, postal, telegraphs, marriage, divorce, commerce, coinage, bankruptcy, quarantine, and Fedevai Supreme Court.