PASTORAL LIFE IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Waikato Times, Volume XL, Issue 3210, 21 January 1893, Page 2

PASTORAL LIFE IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

To judge their circumstauces and surroundioga fairly, people require to look abroad. The following description o! Wilcannia, and its prospects from the pen of the special correspondent of tlio Sydney Mail and written only a couple of mouths ago reveals a sad state of ulf.iiis m tho pastoral centre of Western New South Wales. No doubt the time will arrive when many of the troubles aud hardships now borne will be removed, The iron horse will yet penetrate the far interior districts of New South Wales, and better means will be devised for conserving stores and water, for use in bad seasons, In tho meantime, however, New Zealand pastoralists have no cause to envy tho lot of tho New South Wales squatters:— I "Wilcancis is the most important township from Bourke to Adelaide, and sweeping out by Hay to the Victorian border is the most important township in that greater half of New South Wales lying along the boundaries of Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland, Its stock nutes ramify the whole country. But Wilcannia i 9 standing still for awhile, waiting for tho next turn. This is purely a pastoral district, and the waiting condition of trade is very tersely put by Mr O'Donnell, tho shrewd stock and station agent, who keens his eye so closely on pastoral and trade matters that lie can pull down a map and almost tell you just where every moving "inob of sheep" is. " Rents," he s.iys, " went up 58 to 75 per cent. Improvements Ration improvements) stopped six or seven years ago, as stations were theu cut in two, so that blockers could step on to the frontages. The rabbits came along soon after. Then the flood followed by the strike and the recent drought, These successive evils struck the tuwn square in the face, and brought it more troubles than the fearful drought of 18G8. Trade is trembling from its results now. The recent raising of rents will still further paralyse the feeding industry of tho district. The rabbits hava simply paten the heart out of the country. Four months ago you could walk down the streets here at night and see thousands of rabbits. Now they are scarce." I rode through the Wilcannia common, The devastation was pitiable. Not a sound, not a green twig, gr.133, or leaf; every mulga or other bush burked; every bush dug under and its roots barked and killed. The ground seemed disturbed —every inch of it, and the whole spectacle looked like a desecrated graveyard in the 'solemn silence of the doseit. In the throe or four miles travelled there was no vegetation, and but one live rabbit where thousands upon thousands must have browsed, devastated, aud died. I could, therefore, readily believe the towosman who said that the stench in the district verged on t« a pestilence when the rabbits had eaten out their supplies and died. Some of the trees were eaten 12 to 14ft. up, md limbs that hardly looked capablo of holding a mouse were cleaned. The rabbits got two or three of these twigs between their legs, and lay stretched full length on them, while they cleaned the surrounding small aud tender branches. Now and again a tree may bo seen with the dry caicaso of a dead rabbit hanging up in it. He has slipped, and lias caught either his neck nr or a lee, and has been too weak to extricate himself. Then lie succumbed, but still illustrates the fearful struggle for life when he had forced all other animal] from the common, and then grazed hiir.self to straits and to death, What a fearful story the silence aud desolation of *he- Wilcannia common tells I How illustrative it is of the sad narrative written on every station run about, and preached through every station mortgage in tins Western wild. This state of things could not last in any place long without bringing trade to a standstill, Then again as regards the cost of freights and the necessity for railway communication, a leading Wilcannia merchant said "Compare the cost of transit by rail with that by teams. We pay from 10|d to 2s per ton per mile for carriage by team, and there is no certainty as to when it can get out or get in. All the wool, general station material, and supplies trarel at those rates. The trainage, at even a high rate, would be a comparative nothing, The rivor is as uncertain as' are tho teams and neither can help it. I have had as tnucli as 3000 bales of wool stored here for 12 months, waiting for a river to get it away, after getting it in at great haulage cost. I have this season sent chaff to Tibooburia at a cost of £24 per ton landed. That chat! left Wilcannia at £8 per ton, so the freight, net, was £lO. The distance is about. 200 miles. To that must he added the freights on the South Australian railway aud Silverton tramway. While they were pitching good New Zealand potatoes overboard io Newcastle in 1892 on account.-of tho duty of £1 per ton new duty, Wilcitinia was paying £27 per ton at auction for inferior " spuds." While oranges and lemons were rotting in the Paramatta orchards, Wilcannia was paying 0s per dozen for ' windfalls,' and 60 on all through our food stpplies," Between taxation and hieh rates of freight, it is becoming almost impossible tor either squatter or working man to eat luxuries from the sea board.