AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15152, 27 January 1923, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

"• A v ’ SENERAL SUMMARY. MELBOURNE, January 13. (Special Correspondent.) ROW Zealand Attracts. “If the rivers were attended to by an expert, they would be made attractive to the tourists, and Victorians would be restrained from going away to New Zealand for angling.” The above remark was made by a deputation that waited upon the Chief ( Secretary the other day, and he is going to bring the matter under the] attention' of the cabinet. There is no doubt that New Zealand does advertise itself well on the walls here, and the posters “get in their work.” No one particular poster can perhaps be credited with sending any one particular visitor to-New Zealand, but the posters arft always there, always fluendng the mind and keeping it receptive; and when the holiday comes, there comeg with it the memory- of the lure of the pictures of_ the glaciers, fiords, geysers, mountains, lakes, and fish rivers of the most beautiful land on the planet. The quiet, unostentatious, persistent way in which the silent propaganda is kept up is a standing testimonial to the authorities responsble for it. There is nothing like it here as yet, but there is talk of a beginning being made. Meanwhile the posters should be kept on duty. j Breaking up Big Estates. i The New “Zealand example is’about to be followed in the matter of breaking up the big estates and spreading settlement; The measure has yet to be passed,'but the Cabinet have drawn up a rccoiVimendation to tax heavily the'big estates alongside the railway lines that slay there and wait for the unearned increment. In New South Wales there are 34,000,000 acres .of land ,within 12 miles of the railway, suitable for wheat growing. Provision is to be made for 1000 more holdings on the Mur-, iTiimbidgee for dairying, fruit grow-, ing, arid mixed farming. The work j will be spread over live years and will j cost £500,000 a year. This should have been done long ago; but as.being the landlord of an area as big as a small county is one ol‘ the least fatiguing methods of making a living; there lias been very sincere opposition to the idea of popularising land tenure. Totallsator Barred, But This Is a land of a few inconsistencies. To mention the lotalisalor is to bring down anathemas,, yet receipts from bookmakers’ licenses and from the betting tax, amounted during the year just ended to £102,380. made up of licenses £ii,oss and betting tickets £148,523. Trio reason given for not allow,ng the lotalisalor is that trial, would be legalising vice; but the people are allowed to tiavc their vice so long as they pay for it. Then on race days, the people who, travel on trie race trains are charged a special price for their wicked indulgence. Trie Governnmnt in fact backs itself to win both ways—first, a reputation for being Puritan; and second, a revenue from those who are not Puritan. Mr Hughes Will Not Say. Whatever one may say at this stage about Mr Hughes is always liable to be contradicted by some sudden and unexpected turn in the political arena. Nevertheless it may be fairly safely prophesied that Mr Hughes has no Intention of giving up office.

The strange old jealousy that exists between' the States has been appealed to. In Victoria Mr Hughes is regarded as anti-Victorian. That is given as the reason for his seeking election in New South Wales. Now that State is accused of favouring him because he represents North Sydney, and he is referred to as having run away from Bendigo. The fear is that he will accept office at any price, will keep up the line of demarcation between the parties, will alienate those who are Nationalist in sympathy but who will not accept Hughesism, and that Labour will come into power by a side wind, with disastrous consequences. Whether the disastrous -conser quences happen or not, it seems probable that Labour will come out of 0 the scramble with the fruits of victory. The Argus prophesies that “lucrative appointments would have to be fqund for Labour demagogues; the control of the Commonwealth shipping line would bo vested in the insolent bosses of the- Federated Seamen’s Union, who would demand their own terms; old age pensions would be increased, whoever had to pay; industry- wo.ulti be strangled by the demands of professional agitators, and only people with more money than sense would begin -new enterprises. '■! With Labour in power, wc mifeht as well put up the shutters." That is not very definite, but that is as far as anyone can go N till the oracle speaks. Scouts Very Much in Evidence. , The Boy Scouts’ Association is a power over here,' and getting more powerful. It has done more .solid' •good than any other proposition ever* put before the boy mind, Out at Flemington there was a gathering of 1500 scouts last week. It was .called a “corobbcrie,” and was conducted with great success. The boys were in earnest. They meant it and did it, and it is wonderful what they can do when they want to. They had the Governor- General- among them, lie bad to take scout'farc. He dined on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, from a tin plate, used a woodenhaiulled knife and fork, drank tea from a big tin pannikin, and- had every appearance of enjoying it. Young scouts served him, ami then demanded his autograph, which ho - ' gave. Then I here, was a march through the city of! 2000 scouts. It was watched by] crowds. The trams were held up byj the authorities to give the display a] full opportunity. It was a most successful exhibition, and nothing more suggestive of the future of Australia lias ever been shown. Thinning out the Hotels. The vote for continuance of licenses in New Zealand was somewhat of a surprise to the temperance party in Australia. It hn.s been suggested (it may have been irony) 11 1 a I the defeat of prohibition was due to the fuel that Americans supported it. A strong stand is being taken in Victoria against houses that depend on the bar trade and do not offer lodging accommodation. It is absurd that while houses can only be obtained on the most extortionate, terms, hundreds of rooms in what are called public bouses are allowed to remain vacant. The temperance party arc very much in earnest. A list of all the hotels in the State has been made, together with their character and credentials. Wherever a house is not fully up to requirements, the Licensing Board marks down a *nc\v subject for compensation. One of the board’s .stipulations now is that a licensee must retain nosscssion for at least nine months

before making a transfer. This serves to check a traffic which has lately been .very prevalent—that of buying into a business, holding it for\a few months, and then selling to a newcomer at an enhanced price. Increasing the Wheat Crop. New Zealand may be peculiarly independent of aid. for the" productivity of her soil, but will be interested-ill learning what less favoured countries have done. Experiments made by experts of the Agricultural Department some 12 or 18 months ago in the treatment of poor soils with a mixture of superphosphates and gypsum produced striking results in increasing the wheat yields. The increased yields thus gained are phenomenal. For the purpose of its experiments the Department utilised areas in the north-west-ern district of Victoria, with the object of testing the benefits of gypsum on light soils in the moister parts of the State. On experimental plots established by the Department at Morlat, about 160 miles west of Melbourne, wheat yields were increased by over 11 bushels per acre by the use of gypsum. Land which, without manure, had produced a yield ave-. raging only 6| bushels to the dcre, or when treated with lewt of superphosphate, 16 1-3 bushels to the acre, when treated with lewt of phosphate and 1% ton of gypsum to the acre, had produced over 27 bushels per acre. Empire Building from the Inside. , t If the Dominions did their possble to realise what they could do, and were not content with what they arc doing, what wealth and position they might gain! * Here in Australia till recently cotton was thought of only as something restricted to America. Now it is realised that wq can rival the best that can be done there, where the boll weevil is working destruction. .Not to go into detail, all those of a speculative turn will be interested to know that where the American average per acre is r>ool bof seed cotton, in Queensland it is 8001 b. The net gain per acre is £2O; it has been as high as £SO. Our only disadvantage is our distance from the central market. There is an estimated shortage in America of 3,500,000 bales, and presently she will need all her supply for home consumption. Then will come Australia’s opportunity; and that opportunity should not he left to-English and American investors only, hut that is the direction in whiclKthings point now. Australia, before many years are over, will outdo anything done “away down south in Dixie.” Already prices for “middling American” arc exceeded. Australians consider that by cultivating cotton and tobacco they are making a big step, which should be imitaled by other members of the Imperial family after their kind, toward making the Empire self contained. Inventing a New Town. Of all the incomprehensible things done in Australia by Australians, the! building of the capital at Canberra is the most difllcult to understand. In i fact, it ea-’mol. be understood. II is j another of (he things that arise from j Uie strange Jealousy between Victoria, I which would noL acknowledge Syd- I ney, and Hew South Wales, which j would not recognise Melbourne. [I | was stipulated S»v New Smith Wales' that the capital «nouki not by any! means he in VicloHa. It was stipulated I by Victoria that it should no; be with- j in at least 100 rndes of Sydney.' Neither Stale would acknowledge the

Governor of the other as Gover'nor'General, alternately or any other way, any more than they would have the same railway gauge. Now there goes on the comic spectacle of a seventh artilicial ‘capital city being built in the wilderness in addition to natural ones already existing. A bungalow hosteL at a cost of £IOO,OOO is being erected for the accommodation of members of Parliament and wealthy visitors. The object of the eccentric people who advocate the building of the strange town is to have the sittings of Parliament transferred to the wilderness before the town is built. What good thing is expected to be accomplished no one knows, but the erection of that artificial town is slowly being perpetrated. It is a frequent matter of wonderment here; why no one has heard of any rivalry or jealousy or ill-feeling between the North Island and the South Island on the other side of the Tasman Sea. The Problem of Domestic Help. The problem of domestic help no doubt exists in New Zealand as it docs in Australia. Here the mistresses are not satisfied with the girls, and the girls are dissatisfied with the mistresses. Invetigation in England by the wife of a professor here shows that there are in England many thousands of young girls who are anxious to come to Lhe Dominions and are willing to take up domestic service, but their parents and guardians are relifctant to allow them to go so far afield without an assurance as to what will be their prospects on arriving here. If only local authorities here would give an assurance that I lie girls would readily find suitable employment on landing, (here would be no difficulty in getting young English women to 'come away down south. Householders arc waking up lo the fact that hero is a probable solution of the troublesome domestic problem, which has so seriously affected home life in the Dominions and driven hundreds of people to give up housekeeping altogether. English conditions of living are much more closely reproduced in New Zealand than they are here, but probably the solution is looked for just as anxiously. i No Libel Like the Truth. “We are a great country, sir; and. must be cracked up.” There are people in Australia who insist that if Australia is to he spoken of at all, it must be by way of praise—praise of everything from climate to politics. West Australia is particularly sensiIvc. It now has a quarrel with an English school geography, which stales that (1) the rivers of the interior Of Australia usually terminate in salt lakes; (2) the western half of the continent is drier than the eastern and has scanty summer rains, because prevalent winds in summer blow to, not from, the ocean; (3) lhe southern coast is deficient in ports, there being none between Albany and Pori Lincoln; and the great Australian Right j presents a line of dills to the southern j Ocean. Quite a heal lias been gen-j crated on llm subjed. The slate-i meiits are pnl down to English ignor- j mice and offensive palronage. Rutj lhe must peculiar lliing aboiil il is dial the slalenienls are. pcrfedly Iruo. j I New Zealand Quoted. “New Zealand aspires I" rnndiid her j poslal service as a genuine puhi • utility, and md merely as an inslru ment of extortion for raising revenue. The Government, finding that it <‘aii carry mails at a rale below those now I

charged, has decided to make a v&Mfction forthwith.” That is the beginning of a complimentary article in the Argus on post office management in New Zealand; and the hope is expressed that ' ttip good example will be followed. Postal arrangements here are, if not ptimitive, Gertainly not up to date in the matter of charges and promptness. The paper goes on to say that “in the face of the example set in New Zealand, the Commonwealth can have no further excuse for perpetuating the increased rate adopted in the days,of the war.” New Zealand’s good example has also been widely quoted here in reference to temperance, to the early hours at which entertainments are over and at which the streets are deserted. In fact the Dominion is being held up as quite a model in most things—of which -cricket is not one!