AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 March 1927, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

[Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.] FIRE DAMAGE. SYDNEY, March 3. The lire at Holden’s motor body builders works, Williams Street, caused damage now estimated at £IOO,OOO. Tlio flumes spread to Morris Moor service station and Oswald’s garage, both adjoining. Morris’ was gutted and Oswald’s severely damaged. I here were many full petrol tanks in Holden’s and explosion ol one ol these injured a tirciiijm and threw into the air a. heavy metal cylinder which crashed through the roof ol a nearby house. A crowd of forty thousand watched the outbreak and almost became panic stricken when the overbuild electric tram wires in Williams Street fused. The crowd rushed in all directions to escape the wire which it was thought would fall. Many women fainted, but no one was injured. When it was seen that the wires had not fallen the crowd returned. More than two hundred motor ears were destroyed in Holden s and forty in Morris’. As a result of the outbrcf.ik hundreds of men are thrown out of employment.

A GOLD FIND. PERTH, March 3. Gold was discovered by a man sinking a well in bis property. Darling Range, eighteen miles from Perth. Already many leases have been pegged out. federal PARLIAMENT. .MELBOURNE, -March 3. Both the federal Houses ol Parliament have reassembled for the last -sittings before the transfer to Canberra. In the Senate it was announced the .Ministry were appointing a Royal ( onuiiissicH to enquire into the circumstances of granting mining leases in Mo robe district, New Guinea. In the House of Representatives, Mr Bruce, in reply to a question by Mr Charlton, whether communications had passed between the British Go\ein-iiu-nt and the Commonwealth in respect to the position in China, said the Commonwealth bad been kept informed ol the position by the British Government. but it was impossible to publish the course which the latter proposed to take in a ilillii ult. delicate situa t ion. In reply to a further question, Mr Bruce said the suggested removal of the offices of the Phosphates Commission li-oni Australia bail now been iO>;i ntloned.

Mr llruce tlien outlined the financial proposals iu connection with the States. He said these would lie embodied in an amended state bill which would provide lor the abolition ot the per capita payments to the States as from the end of the present financial year, and that the Federal Trcasu'rer would pay to the States in proportion to the number of their population any surplus revenue in bis hands. At the end of each financial year, it would also provide, subject to the terms of any agreement made between the Commonweal tli and all States and adopted bv Parliament, that the ’I reasurer during the financial year 11)27 would make payments to each State in equal monthly instalments in the following amounts: New South Wales £'2.978,313, Victoria C2.152,(115. Queensland Cl .131 .(Mb, South Australia £'721,2(>9, West Australia £183,750 and Tasmania. £207,337. The whole idea behind the Constitution was that there should be co-operation between the Commonwealth and the States ill all activities. At present a deplorable spirit of antagonism liad grown up and the Fed-j oral Government wished to prove it, was anxious to bring about harmony j

lie!ween the States and the Commonwealth. The whole matter would be discussed at a conference between tlio States and the Federal Government. The per canitn payments would cease from the end of .June next.

BLACKS ATTACK .MISSION. PORT DARWIN, March 3

An attack was made on one mission station by natives from Arnluim I,and. A religious service was being held on Sunday in the open air when savages armed with spears, crept to where the service was being held and threw spears. .1. Robertson, a lay missionary. seized a rifle, hut it jammed. Grant, a black, launched a spear at him striking Robertson in the hand, which split, thence it travelled along his arm. and inflicted a wound on the chest. Friendly Natives ran for their guns, and the attackers retired, three of them being wounded hy shots, hut escaped in the mangroves. At midnight, they were located, their camp surrounded and three arrested, later t,.ey escaped. A second offensive next day was successful and three wore recaptured and brought to Darwin, four hundred miles by the mission lugger. 'The police are proceeding to Milingimbi. Mr Robertson is recovering.

JOHN RROWNIS HORRY. ARISTOCRATS OK BIRD LIFE. SYDNEY, February 10. Mr John Brown, who. as a coalmining magnate and as a celebrity of the Turf, is known through the length and breadth of Australia, has his hobby, like other mortals. In his case it is pedigree poultry. When he returned to Sydney from a visit to the Old Country a while hack, Press representatives gravely asked him about the coal strike which was convulsing England. and other weighty problems. John Brown, who is a man of few words, knew nothing. But they for got to question him about the only subject upon which ho was likely to become talkative... the consignment of pedigree poultry which ho had imported. while away, for his beautiful property at Richmond Male. It is a vast sanctuary for wild and tame bird and animal life. There, for example, one will find geese worth as much as 70 guineas apiece ; flocks of blue cranes, and all the other aristocrats of bird life.

Richmond Vine is one of the beauty Spots of New .South Wales, and is suggestive ol the rural charm of English countryside. If the Pressmen who interviewed John Brown on liis return to Sydney had chatted with him about geese or native wild ducks or turkey gobblers, instead of trying to draw him on such a material subject as coal I strikes, they would have touched him on a weak spot. M hat they missed, I someone else got a day or two ago. in | the form of a most fascinating story in the Press of Richmond Yale, and its bird life and waters teeming with fish.