AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XVII, 25 April 1903, Page 1142

AUSTRALIA.

The annual report of the administration of New Guinea shows that the new federal territory does not cost more to govern than the £20,000 voted. There have been no special demands for land grants. The goldfield has not increased to any material extent.

The Arbitration Court has reserved its decision in connection with the application of the Wharf Labourers* Union that the Union Company’s Island-trading steamers should be subjected to deep sea conditions. The company contend they should be controlled by inter-State conditions. IMPERIALISM. Speaking at the Australian -Natives’ Asuociation banquet, Sir Edmund liarton believed that the feeling was growing, and must grow, that the citizens in this part of the Empire were beginning to realise that they were in a sense partners not only in the portion of the Empire wherein they happened to be, but in the whole of the rest as well. In ths modern acceptation of the word Empire had none of the significance of absolutism and despotism once associated with if. It was nothing but the cohesion of self-governing bodies, determined to hold together as treasurers of their history, as well as of their territory. He reiterated his advocacy of the proposed naval agreement, and the preference for a distinct Australian squadron. Tho Premiers of New South M ales, A ictorla and other leaders made _ speeches with regard to the main Imperial questions. THE BLEACHING PROCESS. As a step towards a “White Australia,” the largest camel proprietor in the western district, lias replaced the whole of his Afghan drivers by whites. The employment of camels in the farinterior for the last few years, especially since the reign of the drought, has greatly increased, largely superseding the other methods of carriage. The Rt. Hon. C. C. Kingston, Federal Minister of Customs, speaking at Cairns, said he had no sympathy with the Kanakas, never had, and never would. Could not tho gentlemen employed in the sugar industry do it ;te well as any nigger in the world? “Yes,” he said, “and much better.” What sort of descendants of the British were they, he asked, if it could not be teld them that sooner than submit to encourage the yellow agony or the black curse, if there was any industry which required the countenancing of that agony or that curse, that then they should sweep it off the face of Australia? “Let us no longer allow them to continue in this land, which is, and should forever be, preserved as a white man’s land.”