AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 May 1927, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

’Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.] N.S.AV. LABOUR. SYDNEY, May 21. There was a dramatic turn in the light for supremacy in New South Wales Labour Party at the conference to-dny, when Air Lang and Air A\ ill's agreed to recommend to tho Seale executive that it should disband and support the holding of a State convention called under the auspices ol the Federal executive of the Australian Labour Party.

SAYING WHALES

ADELAIDE, Alav 20.

The Annual Assembly of the Congregational Union of Australasia is debating a motion by New Zealand delegates that the Assembly ask the Government to take steps to prevent the extermination of whales. The motion deplores the wholesale destruction of whales in Ross Soa, and asks that the permits to foreign countries be cancelled, and the whale fisheries generally be more rigidly controlled.

BTVERIXA ABANDONED. SYBEY, May 20.

The owners bare abandoned the Riverina to tne underwriters, who will auction the vessel. A U STR ALT A X BTR TH-R ATE. SYDNEY, May 12. The question is being insistently asked whether, in New South Wales, in common with other parts of Australia, the babies, that are acclaimed as the best migrants are getting the same chance as in New Zealand. The babies have again made themselves heard on the subject by reason of the campaign which the Lord Mayor of Sydney has launched, for a new hospital in the city for mothers and their offspring. Babies are credited with having a potential value of about £IOOO each. r lbe average mother ,of course, thinks-they are priceless, l»ut £looo' is regarded as the actual cash value to the State. But the State, in the face of a disquieting decline in the birth-rate, appears to be spending very little on the I,abies. Month by month, the number of babies born in New South Wales is decreasing, it is not difficult to picture the State’s plight if this sort of tiling goes on for, say a decade. The decline is attributed partly to the fact that the Government, which appears to have a ton of money to spend m other ways, will not adequately finance the maternity institutions. All the great metropolitan maternity hospitals are sadly in need of more money.