LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Western Star, Issue 144, 10 June 1876, Page 5

LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Stdnkt, June 1.

The barque Ooquo du Tillage, from Newcastle to New Zealand, put into Twofold Bay, leaky. The Victorian Government has promised great retrenchment in the next budget. The Philadelphia Commissioners have received sample# of tobacco from California for distribution through the colony. The Assembly has voted a sum to raise a second battery of permanent artillery. It is stated that the loss of the squatters of the three colonies during the past quarter amounts to £10,000,000. Arrived—-Otago. . The Victorian Government have admitted that sheep from New Zealand were landed at Melbourne in 1874, although contrary to a compact agreed to at the Colonial Conference. Quetations : —Brandy. Hennessy’s, nominal; kerosene, Is 5d ; oats, 2s 5d to 2s 6d ; wheat, 55,, dull; Adelaide, 5s 5d j flour, £ll lOS'to £1210s; malt, 6s 6d. Sailed.—City of San Francisco, with a fair number of passengers. Melbotjsne, June 2, Ihiring a heavy gale last night the mate of the schooner Lilly, bound from Adelaide, was swept overboard and drowned. The National Reform League last night considered a petition for the recall of the Governor, but adjourned the question. Two passengers per the Sumatra are supposed to be Fenian agents from England, and suspected of being concerned in the last escape of convicts from Western Australia in a whaling vessel. With respect to the Victorian agricultural states the South Australian Register .remarks that “ notwithstanding that there has again been a considerable falling or in the area under wheat cultivation, there has again been an increase in the yield. At the last returns the amount was about 17,000 acres less than in the previous year, and now there has been again a diminution of some 11,000 acres, the present quantity being 321,401 acres. It is very to account for this, as it cannot arise from wheat not being a profitable crop, for the yield per acre again shows a higher average, as it did in 1874-5. This year the average has been rather more than 15 bushels per acre —considerably larger than that of this colony. The total’ yield, however, is of course much less than that of South Australia, being only 4,978,914 bushels. All of this will, as was the case with the produce of 1874-5, be required for food censumption in Victoria. The supply for seed will therefore have to be obtained out of the colony, and will have to pay duty. It is im? possible to help feeling a certain amount of pleasure in knowing that the protective policy of then Victorian legislatorsjoccasionally recoils upon their own heads.” -