STARVATION IN COBAR.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 May 1919, Page 5

STARVATION IN COBAR.

SHEEP STOLEN FOR FOOD

CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT. SYDNEY, May 1. Matters are going from bad to worse at Cobar, the copper-mining community'of about 5000 souls which has had; the, ground suddenly cut from under its feet by the closing down of the copper industry. The position became serious immediately the pay-sheets ceased to circulate, and the State and Federal Governments were urgently appealed to to for aid. Each declared it could do little, but the 'State authorities promised work for several hundreds, of the men, with free transportation. Two or three hundred men, with their dependents, made the migration, but a, larger number remained in the town, without sufficient initiative to getaway. hoping for something to turn up. For a few weeks the town struggled along, the people seeming to live on the system of taking in each other’s washing, but sheer starvation gradually closed down upon numerous families, and bankruptcy stared the,whole community, in the face. - Cobar is surrounded with a halfdesert let out in great runs, where sheep grazed sparingly. Of course, the next development was inevitable. The fathers of Hungary Cobar families went

out into the surrounding country and carried off the sheep. They did not make too much fuss about it. and the station-owners arc only now beginning find their flocks less than expected. and they are prom .iding to take action. This week the men of Cobar marched in procession to the police station, and lodged there for transmission to the Government resolutions expressing regret that honest workmen should have been driven to sheep-stealing by Hie callous indifference of the Government towards their plight. They demanded that the Government display at least some measure of luimauitarianism. and come to the aid of the deserted, helpless and starving little town. The whole position is rather a scandal., a'yd die r odea Con on the Government is so plain and definite that it will be forced to take action of some sort. So far, it has not even si nt an official to Cobar to see what can bo done for the unfortunate folk.