AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8326, 7 January 1907, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS. BRISBANE, January 5,. Ex-Senator Higgs, in a letter to the newspaper Worker, gives among reasons for the defeat of the Socialist Party in Queensland the more lavish expenditure of money than at any previous election. It came, he says, from the rich shareholders in rings and trusts which were threatened by the Labour platform —from men whom it pays to contribute thousands to keep out of Parliament representatives of the masses. SYDNEY, January 5. Senator St. Leger, in an interview, claimed that the splendid women's vote won the anti-Socialist victory in Queensland.

SOMNAMBULISM. SYDNEY, January 5. Three accidents, two of them fatal, occurred to somnambulists in Sydney during the past fortnight. VICTORIAN AGENT-GENERAL. MELBOURNE, January 5. The Hon. J. W. Taverner has been re-appointed Agent-General for Victoria for three years, at a Salary of £I,OOO. SERIOUS FIRE. BRISBANE, January 5. A fire in the main street of Roma, 318 miles west of Brisbane, destroyed five shops and damaged five others. There is no estimate of the damage. INFLUX OF FARM LABOURERS. SYDNEY, January 5. English farm labourers are arriving in fairly large numbers, as the result of Government-assisted immigration.

MEAT PRESERVING WORKS BURNED. v \ Received January 7, 4.55 p.m. SYDNEY, January 6. Williams' meat preserving works at Camperdown have been destroyed by fire. The damage amounts to £4,000, and the insurances to £3,750. Fifty men have been thrown idle. REPATRIATION OF KANAKAS. FEMALE SLAVERY. SYDNEY, January 5. The Sydney Morning Herald, dealing with the question of the repatriation of Kanakas, calls attention to the fact that in the island of Malaita, whence the majority of the Kanakas in Queensland were recruited, each village keeps a number of female slaves for immoral purposes. Female children born in Australia are regarded as not possessing tribal rights, and there is little doubt that they will be made slaves when they return with their parents. The Herald adds: —"The missionaries give sanctuary to» all as far as they can, but even the mission stations in Malaita are not altogether safe against raids. The matter is ohe requiring prompt attention, with a view of preventing the deportation of young girls born and reared in Queensland to such a life. It is too repugnant for even the warmest advocate of Kanaka expulsion to contemplate.

THE CRICK-WILLIS TRIAL. ENQUIRY INTO JURYMEN'S ALLEGATIONS. SYDNEY, January 5. . A newsagent named Kitching, examined by the commission, deposed that what he told Haynes was that he had been approached in connection with squaring a case of his own, three years ago. He was not approached in the Crick-Will is case. Haynes, re-called, said that when he spoke of money being sought to square the jury he had not referred specially to the present case, but to jury-squaring in general. SHIPPING. Received January 7, 1.5 a.m. SYDNEY, January 6. Arrived Drayton Grange, from Port Chalmers