AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 July 1926, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.] INCREASE IN WAGES. SYDNEY, July 22. The wage rates at Newcastle have men increased twenty-five per cent, to ■onform with the Sydney increase.

lIE A LTH CON FERENC®. MELBOURNE, July 22. Sir Neville Howse, at the opening of the Conference of the M misters of Health of the various States and their .Medical advisers, said that the general death rate in Australia'is low, infant mortality rate is low, tuberculosis rate is low, but the position in respect to scarlet lever, diphtheria and typhoid, by comparison .with other countries (even backward countries) was very unsatisfactory. The typhoid death rate in the country districts was still far hierher than it should he. In view of the good system of local government in respect to cancer, Australia stands at a higher level of death rate than seventeen other countries. There has been a very real and serious increase in cancer mortality, chiefly in cancer of the digestive tract. The proportion of female cancer deaths to the total deaths is considerably greater than the proportion of miale deaths. In the past seventeen vears Seventy thousand persons in Australia died from cancer alone. During the next ten years a further seventeen thousand # will die from this disease. Regarding pierperal mortality, compared with other countries, Australia takes twelfth place.