AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2488, 11 April 1893, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

Adelaide, April 7. The programme of the Opposition party includes proposals to help producers to meet the existing conditions, by reducing the cost of living, through the abolition of duties on necessaries of life, and making up the loss to the revenue by a tax on large landed estates which are unutilised. 'To adjust the national Ihiauce they further propose to reduce the military, naval, and other votes, and to establish a Peat Office Savings Bank as the nucleus of a State Bank.

Brisbane, April 8. The Opposition party have issued a programme. It includes the abolition of pliu;U voting, lowering of freights on the railways to secure settlement of the land, and establishment of agricultural colleges. No Indian coolies, Chinese, or Japanese, are to be employed as agricultural laborers, but it is not proposed to put a stop to the employment of Kanaka labour during the duration of the next Parliament. There is to be no Stateaided immigration at present, but families settling in the colony will receive a homestead grant. The Opposition advocate State-ownership of the railways, and will endeavour to effect retrenchment in the Civil Service. They will also urge the introduction of a Shops and Factories Bill, and the payment of bonuses for the export of dairy produce. The protection policy will not be fb; d . turbocl, and it is suggested that the question of the, separate - A 0 f Northern Qu^n 1? k»d be ref^: red to a Referendum. KEE- LiHey, in an electioneering made a powerful attack upon Kanaka labour and land grants for the construction of railways. He styles the latter system an enactment for the benefit of sellers of scrip, gamblers, and syndicates. He considers it a dangerous instrument, and that it would create vast estates and a monopoly of railways worked by Asiatics, Africans, and Kanakas. He believes that black labour would exclude Queensland from Australian federation. Brisbane, April 7. Sir T. Mcllvvraith, the Premier, addressing his constituents, said that the Ministery were determined to reduce the cost of government, and there would be no further borrowing until the burdens of the taxpayers were relieved.