AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3787, 27 May 1885, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

[By Telegraph.)

(Per s.s. City of Sydney at Auckland.)

Sydney. May 21. The Contingent is expected to return about the 12th June, when a grand parade of all the forces will be held. The strength of the permanent forces now amonnto to a little over 450 men, and the total defence force, including the reserves and all branches of the service to something like 10,000 men. The water supply question still absorbs much attention. The weather continues fine and dry, and the supply in the dams is fast decreasing. Already the city and suburbs are placed on short supply, and means are being devised to bring water by flumes or pipes from Scarborough Park or aome other locality. Typhoid is not decreasing, the circumstances being against it.

Some time last June the secularist paper the “ Liberator,” was banished by the Committee from the reading-room of the School of Art. The paper in question reflected in gross terms on the Queen, to what Judge Windeyer describes as a series of coarse, brutal, and infamous libels. The Secularists last night asserted that they were true, and Charles Bright moved a resolution in favor of the “ Liberator ” being retained, but the meeting, by a large majority, decided otherwise.

Admiral Tjron considers our means of defence insufficient, and that we should have at command something more than merely local defence ships. The new cruiser, Lusitania, will be taken on a trip for gnn practice tomorrow.

A collision occurred in the harbor on Tuesday night between the steamer Australian, outward bound with pas sengers, and the Fort Jackson. The former was considerably damaged, and had to be beached. A collision also occurred in the Newcastle harbor the same night. There is every appearance of trouble at the Greta mine, Wallsend. A ballot is to be taken whether the men will go out on strike or not. The Company’s dispute in tbe Wallsend colliery is not yet settled.