TRIP TO AUSTRALIA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 17, 7 September 1914, Page 2

TRIP TO AUSTRALIA.

■ - v - v f ■ Ti* *. . A 'VISITOfPS IMPfiffesSfONS.

Mr S. Pitt returned to Stratford on Friday after a six weeks’ holiday trip to Australia. In conversation with our representative Mr Pitt said of course the war overshadowed everything over there at present", and it looked as if it was going to niakk'a far greater difference to Australia than New Zealand by throwing thousands out of work. At Broken Hil! 2000 men had been discharged, as the concentrates which they mined there were all exported to Germany, where they are treated by a‘ special process. On an average they railed 2500 tons per week to Adelaide to be shipped. This meant a loss also to the Railway Department (who were getting 10s a ton railage), and also lessened the shipping at the port, where already hundreds were out cf work, and it had been necessary to start a relief fund for the wives and families.

Subscriptions to the patriotic fund are coming in freely, and already Sydney has contributed £44,000. Mr Pitt attended one of the depots in South Australiawhere the Department were buying horses for the Expeditionary Forces, and says values were considerably lower than the New Zealand prices. Mr S. Kidman, the big South Australian squatter, made a present of a hundred horses off one of his runs.

Mr Pitt said the drought in South Australia was causing quite as much uneasiness as the war. In most parts they had not had a drop of rain for eight months, and the mortality among the flocks was very heavy. One farmer who sheared 15,000 sheep last year has not got 400 left to clip this season, and it is a case of the shearers going to' the'sheep instead of the sheep coming to the shed, as they are too weak to travel. Grave fears arc entertained for the wheat harvest, and in one district in South Australia, Mr Pitt says, the train went for thirty miles ' through nothing but Avheat as far as the eye could see, and farmers told him if Would have to be oaten off with stock if rain did not come soon.

Fortunately New South Wales was not aS "badly off,' and "some parts had experienced good rains' and their harvest was assbredi ' but 'Mr Pitt' thinks Australia is going back to her old dry periods again, u! The Australian output of bnttei 1 was 'toils less than the previous season, and only half what it was four years ago. Beef is very dear, and fetching from 36s to 40s per iOGlbs, and in Adelaide steak is lOd per lb. In conclusion,* Mr Pitt said be had an enjoyable trip, and had only seen one shower of rain since eaving New Zealand.